The Morphing Games
by Taneva Rose
Summary: Twenty-four names drawn at random, by the end all but one will be dead. The final survivor receives the ultimate prize: immortality. My name is Bella Swan, and I'm a Prospective in the 100th Morphing Games. There's only one problem: I don't want to win.
1. 1

Authors Note: Thanks to Her Mighty Ubergeekness, Someone AKA Me and Bella_Barbaric for editing this chapter. It should be even cleaner now.

[1]

When I wake up, the bed is freezing. My hands grip the thin sheets close to my body, trying to hold in every scrap of warmth I can. It's only October, but it's already too cold to be sleeping alone.

My brother, Ben, and I used to sleep in the same bed when we were little if we were cold or wanted to have fun playing card games after lights out. Our card games were always a little haphazard, because we only had forty-four cards in the deck, but we didn't need kings and queens. As the two children of the head Peacekeeper of District 2, we felt like royalty enough. But royalty always gets the guillotine in the end, and just as my father is no longer head Peacekeeper, my brother and I don't play cards anymore.

There's only one bed for the two of us now, but Ben still chooses to sleep on the floor rather than with me. Even when real winter comes and it gets so cold my whole body shudders from earthquakes of shivers, he sleeps alone rather than share my warmth. I don't blame him. If Ben had done the things to me that I had done to him, I would die before I slept in the same bed with him.

But just because he refuses to be warm doesn't mean I can't be. I wrap the holey blanket around my body, twist onto my stomach and peer out the slatted window that overlooks the skyline of District 2, my home. My room in the top of the cramped apartment complex is about the size of one of the lockers at the Training Center, but the view makes up for it.

Below my tiny window, hundreds of gray skyscrapers stand in regiments, their uniformity a symbol of the insipidness of human architecture. At least that's what my Volterran History textbook says. Sometimes, on sunny days, I can see the lake in the distance, steely blue and roiling. Not today, though; today fog has rolled in, eating the tops of even the shortest skyscrapers.

I shouldn't be in bed now; I have to be at the Blood Bank by noon and it must already be ten judging from the foggy sunlight. Thankfully, I haven't missed school by sleeping in, as today is a holiday, the day of the Reaping.

At midnight, all of District 2 will gather to pick the representatives, the Prospectives, who will compete in the Morphing Games. This is what Ben's been looking forward to ever since that night a year after Mom died, the night he lost his eye.

He'll be at the gym getting in some last minute training. The thought of this inspires me to jump out of bed and head to the worn cardboard box with my clothes on it.

"Charlie, have you seen Ben?" I peer around the door as I fumble with the clasp that attaches my ID to my jumpsuit.

His silence is unsurprising; Charlie hasn't spoken more than ten words in the six years since it's been just him, Ben, and me. Sometimes, I wonder-if I called him dad he would talk more, but I don't have the heart to try. This man's not my dad. He's a ghost.

I shimmy between my bed and the set of free weights I found for Ben, to get through to the adjacent room which also functions as a kitchen, a living room, and Charlie's bedroom.

"Hey, Charlie." I repeat.

He's at the counter, staring blankly at the lunch I made for him. I take extra care to make sure he eats consistently, because if his blood becomes bland, or worse, malnutritioned, he'll lose his position as janitor and be labeled as chattel. Then all I'll have of him is a final rating sheet, his whole life summarized by a statistic of satisfaction. The sickest part is if he's especially delicious, they send you money. As if that makes up for it. As if not only we're replaceable to them, but also replaceable to each other.

Charlie turns to look at me, his untamed beard covering his mouth-not that there's any expression to hide. He wasn't emotionally demonstrative when my mom was alive, he was too manly, but now I think he has no emotions to show.

I move closer and repeat my earlier question, slower this time. "Have you seen Ben?"  
>He shakes his head slowly. He's doing worse than usual. I wonder if he's worried about Ben too.<p>

"You don't have to go to the subway today, remember, it's the Reaping, a holiday." I don't see if he pays attention, because I'm rifling around in the cabinet for breakfast. I usually give the best stuff to Charlie and Ben, but I need more than the usual half a bar today; I have a bloodletting.

I pick out a Flavorful Bar and a Savory Bar, each designed to give the buyer's blood the taste described. The generic brands we have don't actually work that well; I've never gotten good flavor ratings, but we buy them anyway because you have to do everything you can, even when it doesn't work.

The door slams, and when I turn around, Charlie's gone. "Bye," I yell. It comes out angrier than I'd like. It doesn't matter, because Charlie's not really listening anyway.

I pick up my bag from the side of the door and throw the two bars in along with a steel canteen of water and a flashlight. Staying hydrated is important not only for the weekly bloodletting, but also to keep me energized for my trek through the sewers later to meet with Jacob.  
>I take one last gulp straight from the tap before wiping off the flecks of rust left on my lips from the faucet and bounding down the stairs. I don't see Charlie on the way down. He's quick, always has been, despite the fact that he's almost as big as the statue of President Aro in the main square.<p>

Once I reach the last landing, my bladder makes it clear to me that I have business to take care of. I'll have to hold it until I get to the Blood Bank, though. Having a bathroom is a luxury we can't afford. This is also the reason why the backyard of our apartment smells like stool and urine. When we first moved here it was all I could smell. It got in my clothes, in my eyes. It didn't matter how many showers I took at the gym at school. I would claw at my skin until I had long scrapes, but even then I could smell it my blood.

Still, I refuse to contribute to the smell. Charlie, Ben and the rest of the tenets have no problem doing their business in the small quadrangle of cracked concrete and ragged tufts of grass, but I have a little more dignity.

This trip on foot is unbearably long from our apartment in the southernmost edge of the slums to the Blood Bank, in the northern-most tip in the wealthiest part of District 2. When I was younger, when my every moment was devoted to training for the Morphing Games, I could run a five minute mile, but now that I've stopped training I probably run it in eight—on a good day.  
>Usually I occupy myself during the long jog by reading the many graffiti slogans scrawled across the concrete walls of the ramshackle apartments and stores, but today they just make me upset.<p>

Some are pictures of genitals, others pieces of poetry; I like the latter better than the former. Even more are couples names strung together, but the large majority are tributes to the winners of the Morphing Games that came from our district. Right now, scrawled on almost every wall, is the name of last year's winner: Rosalie Hale. I suppose since the Reaping is upon us, people are vandalizing in honor of her homecoming. No one has seen her since the reaping last year, when she was still human.

Not wanting to look at her name is the reason I'm staring at the cracked pavement beneath my feet at the wall. Since my mom died, I haven't been able to think about Rosalie Hale without wanting to punch someone. It was hard to keep my anger in control after Rosalie volunteered and became a Prospective; she was as common a topic as the weather. It was even worse when she won, but eventually the Hale hullabaloo died down—until now.

Thankfully, the graffiti becomes less frequent the closer I get to the center of town and to the Blood Bank. The buildings shrink until brick and wood houses with wild, dry lawns surround me. Everything's closed except for the Blood Bank; most people want to be with their family, just in case this is the last time they see them.

The houses thin eventually, too, until I'm walking along a long boulevard, lined with twisted metal streetlamps and a marble wall on both sides of the street. Groups going and coming from the Blood Bank, walk with silence and efficiency to their destination. Some are wearing grey jump suits like me, but many are in slacks and dresses. Those are the wealthy ones; the ones with enough money to put healthy food on the table. They never have to worry after a bloodletting that they'll be sent to the capitol. It's hard to believe I used to be one of them.

The Blood Bank is the only building in District 2 that looks new, having been refurbished just two years ago. It used to be gray like everything else in 2, but in the redesign the architect went for an aesthetic of smooth, white limestone with tall columns and a dome made of copper. It looks like a temple.

The Blood Bank is also the biggest building in the District, taking up almost a full block with its front entrance facing right onto Volturi Avenue, the main street here. Two small statues, a boy and a girl, guard the main entrance, clothed only in pleated tunics. The boy glares out fiercely, in his hand a dagger, point down. At the tip there is a single drop of red marble: blood. The girl kneels, facing the boy, the staircase separating them. She holds out a metal dish, stretching out as if to reach for the last bit of blood from the dagger. Both of their faces are calm, marred only by the protrusion of fangs from between their lips. At their feet are thousands of nickels.

The nickels have always been there, an entrance fee for those who can afford to bypass the lines and the stench of the poor man's gate in back, but the statues have not. They must have been added today, in honor of the Reaping. I can't help but stare at them in horror. Not because of the dagger, or the girl craning to reach the blood, but because they are children. And children shouldn't have fangs.

The rules of the Morphing Games are clear on this. In fact, the Morphing Games have clear and hard rules on every aspect of their execution.

Every year all of the names of the adolescents, boys and girls between the ages of sixteen and twenty, are put into two steel boxes. One for the boys, one for the girls. Then a representative from Volterra, always a vampire, pulls out one name from each box. These two Prospectives are granted the honor of having the opportunity to join the ranks of the uppermost echelon in society: the vampires.

There's a catch though: when vampires took the burden of leadership from irresponsible human hands, they got over-ambitious and created too many new vampires too quickly. The newborns were volatile and unwilling to bow to Volterran rule and so had to be eliminated. In order to make sure the number of Vampires never exceeded the ability for humans to feed them, they decreed that only one vampire would be added every year.

The problem is that every year, on October 1st, at midnight, there are more than two names being drawn. There are twelve districts in Volterra, and every single one has two boxes, and draws two names. So by the end of the night there are twenty-four Perspectives and only one slot.

The Vampires have a simple way of deciding who gets to fully realize their opportunity: a fight to the death. They spend the whole year constructing an elaborate outdoor arena, then throw the Prospectives into it until only one remains. Sometimes the arena is straightforward, a desert or a forest in a mountain, but most of the time it's not that simple.

Last year the arena was a system of caves underwater, where the slightest movement could trigger a shift in the rocks, allowing water to pour in through the cracks, and drown any trapped within. The Morphing Games ten years ago were particularly special—for the 90th anniversary they put all the contestants in a steel box, much like the very one they had pulled their names out of. The winner's name was James; he was from District 4. When he won, he held up his opponent's heart, which was still pulsing weakly in his hand. He had eaten half of it.

While anything goes in the arena, beforehand there is a strict procedure. After the names are called, there is opportunity for a person of the same gender as the person picked by lottery to volunteer. If the volunteer could defeat the person picked by lottery, they may take their place. Only the first volunteer's request would be honored, and one could only volunteer after the name had already been called out. District 2 is one of the districts that has volunteers willing to take the place of the Prospective, but some of the poorer districts don't have the luxury of having time to train. For them, being sent to the Morphing Games is no better than being lowered to Chattel status.

The second rule, and the reason the statues disturb me so much, is that no Prospective is ever to be younger than sixteen or over twenty. There are no child vampires. It is the one concession to goodness and humanity that the Vampires make-they don't allow children to enter the arena and be slaughtered.

And yet, here in the center of District 2 are two immortal children, marking the entrance to the cornerstone of Volterran rule.

"You going to give a nickel, or you going in the back with, ol' Greasy Sae and the rest of us gray suits?" A woman behind me clips me on the shoulder. Her gray jumpsuit is too big for her hunched skeletal form, but her toothy smile is grandmotherly.

I grab her by the shoulder and throw her to the ground roughly, pinning her arms. "Where is it?" I ask calmly, breath even. It's been a while since I've had to do this.

"Don't hurt me," she begs.

"Tell me or I break your arm." This is the only way to deal with the thieves. I should have known they'd be about; even the Peacekeepers are at home on Reaping day.

"I don't know what you're talking about! Please!" Her voice cracks as she pleads with me.  
>"Why would you wanna hurt an old lady just givin' some advice?" I think she's crying, but it's hard to tell. Her tears don't fall down her face, but instead get caught in the crags and canyons of her wrinkles.<p>

Slowly, I begin to bend her arm backwards, at first only enough to make her aware of it. With the shifting in weight she tries to get up, but my knees have her thighs securely pinned. Her lips open to scream, and I realize I'll have to try a different tactic.

I increase the pressure with one hand and frisk her with the other, until my fingers brush smooth plastic. There, my ID. Before I ease off of her, I string it around my neck. My ID labels me as Bella Swan, level gray, blood type O+, and holds access to all my funds. Without it, I'm a nobody; without it, I am dead.

"What do you tell your grandchildren you do all day, Greasy Sae?" I ask as I stand above her crippled, pathetic form. It's low of me to ask question like this to an old woman. I've done plenty of shit myself, too, but I take comfort in the fact that I'm only being as hard on Sae as I am on myself.

She scrambles up, wheezing from the pain. "I tell them—" She coughs, long percussive hacks. As she takes her eyes from the ground I see they're brown, just like mine. "I tell them I'm going to steal an ID for them. I tell them that if I do then maybe they'll have parents tomorrow. I tell them that stealing is wrong, but that I'll do it because my their great-grandmother died in the takeover, and no grandchild of mine will live without a mother. No child should." It's a rehearsed speech, but I also know that even if it's not a true story for Greasy Ol' Sae, it is for someone, somewhere. Living without a mother could drive people to insanity; I knew this from firsthand experience.

"No child should, but some children do."

"Oh, you poor girl." Her eyes widen just enough that I almost believe she means it.

But mercy is a luxury I can't afford. The pick-pockets, even the old ones, aren't always so harmless, one almost pulled a knife on me once before I disarmed him. "Next time you try and steal from me, I break your arm."

I turn and walk towards the poor man's gate; the eyes of the fanged children, trapped forever in ashen marble, watch me as I go.


	2. 2

Authors Note:

As usual huge thanks to my betas, HMU, and Someone Aka Me.

[2]

"Blood alone moves the wheels of history."

Martin Luther

I manage to suppress my fear until the moment I enter the waiting room, but once I see the florescent lights and peeling plastic chairs, my mind races to calculate my chances.

I ate more this month, almost twice as much as usual. It has been stormy at the lake, the churning waters depositing on the shore a particularly wide variety of junk to sell. More money means food rich in nutrients, means my blood should be full of vitamins, but my palms still slip and slide, sweaty against the edge of the chair. I visualize my numbers eking out just on top of vitamin and mineral quotas. This calms me. In my mind it's as if the sheet as already been printed. Isabella Swan, blood satisfaction level: average. It will be fine. It already is.

I take out the Savory Bar and begin to chew it furiously, knowing that it won't digest in time. I should have eaten it on the way over, but I was distracted by seeing Rosalie's name everywhere. The Savory Bar is not at all savory, but is chalky and hard—it tastes distinctly of dust. But food isn't for our pleasure; it's for maintaining health and vitality to give to the Empire. Because the truth is, at the end of the day, we are the real food.

As I chew, I find my eye caught by the posters displayed across the walls. Each has a giant red V and a slogan of the Volterran Empire.

"Opportunity is the gateway to honor."

"The burden of responsibility is best shouldered by those who have arms strong enough to carry it."

"Your vitality is your greatest asset."

The nasal monotone of the receptionist tears my gaze away from the posters. "Isabella Swan."

She's dressed in real clothes, not a jumpsuit. If that didn't make her wealth conspicuous enough, she's fat. Rolls of it spill over her small chair and push through her tight, floral-print sleeves. Working at the Blood Bank is perhaps the most lucrative career—besides Peacemaker—but she should be careful. If she eats too much, she could get diabetes. That warrants an immediate reclassification. No vampire wants to drink blood so sweet you can't taste life in it, can't taste the pain.

"Here," I say, reaching up and pulling my ID away from my jumpsuit. She scans it, and the light above the door she guards turns green.

I hate that even now my hands shake as I take back the ID. How many times have I done this? How many times, no matter how little I've eaten, have I logged in just above quota levels? Every time. It will all mean nothing if my blood doesn't meet standards today.

"Proceed to Bloodletting room six, please."

I push the metal bumper on the door and it swings open to reveal a hallway filled with doors identical to the one I just pushed. I pick the sixth one and open it.

"Hello, you must be Isabella Swan." The woman sitting in the small swiveling chair is the exact opposite of the receptionist: small, not much older than me and very blonde.

"That's what my ID says, doesn't it?" For a moment I worry that maybe Greasy Sal actually did filch my ID, and I unconsciously finger the cord that attaches it to my jumpsuit.

A soft laugh spills from her lips. "I'm just introducing myself. I'm Primrose Everdeen." She holds out a hand.

I look at it skeptically. "Usually, they just take my blood. Did I do something wrong?"

No laugh this time, just a musical sigh as she retracts her hand. "No, no. I just think sometimes there are ways to make the experience more pleasant."

"The opportunity to give my greatest asset to the Empire outweighs any inconvenience," I say. I think this was on a poster in the waiting room a couple of years ago. I hope that if I play the role of model citizen, I can get this over with quicker.

She looks at me strangely, and for a moment I worry I haven't been convincing enough. The truth is that I hate blood—always have. Even when we were rich and I was in training school for the Morphing Games, and forced to see blood almost every day, I never got over the aversion.

To convince her of my sincerity I offer up my wrist and she ties a small rubber tourniquet around it, bringing my veins to prominence. After a flash of silver, I close my eyes. I don't want to see the long, thin needle pierce my flesh.

My fear of bloodlettings started when I was little the first time I came with my mom for hers. Every time I saw the needle stuck in her arm and the blood snake out of her through the clear tube, I was sure they were trying to kill her.

My mom would always hold my hand and whisper, "I'll love you forever."

And I would always say back, "I'll like you for always."

Most times those words were enough to comfort me, but once there was a plague in District 11, and we had to increase our blood quotas to cut the difference. They took almost half a liter from Mom that month and with every second she got weaker. By the end she looked as pale as the white, linoleum floor.

I was seven and a half and had enough control not to scream and shout, but not enough stop the tears. When it was over they bandaged her up and she held me in her arms. "I love you forever; I'll like you for always. As long as I'm living, my duckling you'll be. For you are my duckling and always shall be," she sang-spoke to me.

This managed to get a rise out of seven-year old me, and banish my fear for her. "I'm not a duckling; I'm a Swan."

"I know, Bella, I know."

Three people died that year from being overdrawn. Even more died when the standards for blood nutrition were raised, so that anyone whose blood tested with less than perfect vitamin, mineral, pH and glucose levels, would be reclassified as Chattel and sent to the capitol to die. It was scary, but after my family survived that, I remember thinking we could handle anything.

"All done," Prim says. She neatly places the needle and her gloves into a small contained labeled BIOHAZARD. The smell of disinfectant wafts over to me as she opens it with her foot. It's the only smell I hate more than the smell of piss in our backyard.

She pats me on the arm, her gaze tinged with real concern. How odd. "You should eat your cookie now."

On the counter beside me is a uniformly shaped cookie wrapped in a half-transparent, white plastic. "No, I'm fine." I always save the cookies from bloodlettings to give to Charlie or Ben.

Her bright-blue eyes crinkle with concern, but when she speaks her voice is professional and firm. "We don't want you passing out in the waiting room."

Under her surprisingly deliberate gaze, I unwrap the cookie and take a small bite. It's the sweetest thing I've tasted in a long time: crunchy on the outside, but bendy and soft at the core.

"Your health and vitality are your greatest assets," she says. If it wasn't crazy, I would say she almost gives me a little smirk.

If it's the quickest way to get away from her, then I'll down the whole cookie. I don't want to spend another moment with someone who smiles at me and tells me her name for reasons I can't understand. Also, the longer I'm in here, the longer I live in suspense over my result.

Before I can rush out the door, she asks, "Isabella Swan, correct?"

"Yes, Primrose Everdeen." I mock. What is with this woman and feeling the need to confirm my identity?

"Your brother is Benjamin Swan?" She leans forward, eyes bright. What does she know? What has my brother done?

"Yes, why?"

"Oh, nothing, he's just next on my list," she says, but there's something about it that rings false.

"That doesn't make sense. Why would my brother sign up for a bloodletting today? He's going to volunteer." The moment the words come out of my mouth, I wish I could take them back. Telling people your business can be deadly.

"H-he is?" She looks down on at the list before glancing up at me, not accusingly, but with a patient awareness. "You don't sound happy about it."

I could lie and say that I'm thrilled my brother wants to go into the arena, but that would just make her more suspicious. "We used to be Gold Levels-" I struggle to choose my words carefully, not wanting to come off as heretical "-but he doesn't have nearly enough training, and he has a bad eye."

I keep expecting her gaze to flicker to mine, accusing, but it's abnormally still, focused with pin-point precision on the clipboard in-front of her. "He doesn't sound like he's suited for it."

I let out a sigh of relief. She's on my side. I guess her agreement could be a lie too, to bait me into saying something even worse, but it doesn't matter if she screams that the Volturi are monsters and deserve to die, I won't follow suit, no matter how much I agreed.

I have had a simple strategy since my mother died and my brother lost his eye: atone for my mistakes and stay safe.

Still, sometimes even I have to take risks. "Could you, you know, try and talk him out of it?"

"He really is volunteering." She echoes in shock and-is that anxiety? Why this is so startling, I don't know.

"I know—boys are stupid, right?" I wish that was all. I wish he was just careless, arrogant and ignorant of the reality of violence. I wish I could be like a normal big sister and be annoyed with my little brother for being messy or silly or crude.

"I just can't believe it." Her finger keeps tracing the letters of his name over and over again.

I shift awkwardly in my chair, rubbing off my hands against the side of it.. "People volunteer all the time." Almost every year at least one of the Prospectives is there by choice.

"Yes, but I thought he would have told me." Finally, she looks up at me, and I'm struck by the girlish wideness of her gaze and the sadness within it.

"What?"

"I mean, I didn't think he would schedule his appointment for the day of the reaping if he was planning to volunteer."

"Are you friends with my brother?"

"No, I . . ." She's lying, but why? Perhaps even more importantly, how does she, a Gold Level, know my brother? After her response there's no question that she does.  
>I don't have time to think about it; I'm already late for meeting Jacob. "Well, if you could just maybe mention what I said . . ."<p>

She nods more resolutely than I'd expect. "I will definitely try. I don't think he sounds like he's the kind of person suited to the Morphing Games."

"Thanks. Well, I've got to go now. I need to find out my results." I push my shoulder against the door and turn the handle with my right hand, slipping through the crack.

Muffled through the closed door behind me, I hear her barely catch her reply, so soft it is, like a little kid's. "Anytime."

As I enter the waiting room, I can feel the fat receptionist watching me. When I turn to catch her in her spying, her eyes snap back to scanning the computer in front of her. I imagine she gets a sick satisfaction from knowing the fate of everyone around her before they do.

It's impossible to tell what my result is from her face, although I know it's already there on the computer.

As I walk toward her I make contingency plans. If I come in below quota I can always volunteer for the Morphing Games—but no, I would rather die, pig to the butcher's knife than rooster in a cockfight. If I have to go, fine, but I'm not going to put on a show. Anyway, if anyone deserves to fall below quota, it's me.

"Congratulations," the woman announces limply. Her eyes look right through me, long-nailed fingers tapping on the desk, without any enthusiasm at all.

My breath doesn't dislodge from my chest; a congratulations doesn't mean anything. She could be congratulating me for being reallocated to the Capitol to better serve Volterra. . . with my life.

She turns the monitor around to me, and I search out the purple dot on the screen that represents me. And there I am, a tiny speck, riding just over the edge of the red line.

Thankfully, on the upper quadrant.

All I can think as I turn from the monitor and walk towards the door is that I'm safe.  
>I'm so preoccupied with this thought, I don't notice my brother until I trip over his outstretched feet. He's engrossed, too, lounging, slouched on one of the plastic chairs, reading a small pamphlet on Morphing Game strategy. He has it almost to his nose.<p>

"Hey," I say cautiously, afraid he'll dart like he always does when I'm near.

His eyes widen and his face turns in my general direction, but one of his eyes, the one that is clouded over with white, doesn't make full contact with me.

"Bella." His voice is entirely devoid of emotion. Sometimes Ben is too much like Charlie for my taste. Except with Ben it's my fault. "In for your bloodletting?"

"Just had it."

"Finally fall below quota?"

My eyes widen. Much like the fear I feel at the bloodletting, it doesn't matter how many times my brother casually wishes for my death, it never loses its force.

"Cut it out," I say, conscious that the eyes of the receptionist are trained on me, a fat caterpillar eager for another piece of gossip to consume, hopeful that maybe it will finally turn her into a butterfly.

"The opportunity to inform you of your unfailing dumbassery is my greatest honor."

"You can't do it."

"Can't do what?" he asks, playing dumb, knowing that I'm putting myself in danger by saying explicitly that he shouldn't volunteer in public. It was alright to talk about it with Prim because she brought it up, and if she tried to report me, I could just as easily report her in turn.

Fine, let him see how things have changed; let him see how much I care for him. Let him see what kind of risks I'll take. "You can't volunteer for the Morphing Games."

If he seems surprised by the fact that I've just put myself at risk of minor treason, I wouldn't know; his face is as blank as ever.

"Don't think I can win?" He taps his left eye. "This thing? Doesn't matter. And if I win it'll matter even less. Perfect vision, Bella—vampires have it." The eye swivels slightly as he speaks, never focusing on any one thing.

"I know you can win; I just think you shouldn't. You shouldn't volunteer." I am edging closer and closer to outright heresy. I wish I could bring Ben to my secret place outside of the city walls and tell him what I mean to say, but I can't. I'm not sure he won't tell the authorities about it, just to spite me.

His brow furrows. "Don't want me having more glory than you?"

"Wake up," I hiss through clenched teeth. "We're Gray Levels now and haven't been in a real training school in years. There will be people in the games who haven't missed a day of training, people whose only goal is to kill people like you."

The blind eye swivels to my face and seems almost to rest on it a moment. "I know all about people trying to kill me."

"No," I say with a bitter chuckle, "you don't."

He had only been a level four in training when we left; I was level ten and my best friend in school was also the girl who had broken my arm, strangled me and accidentally shot an arrow into my shoulder. Her name was Rosalie Hale.

When my mother complained, she was told by the school that they had never seen a friendship as strong as ours. They said it was the mark of a good future Prospective to express affection through violence.

Rosalie told me this, so I'm not sure that it's true, but I believed her then. So, when I wanted to be friends with a girl in the year below me I broke two of her ribs in the sparring match. I didn't understand why she didn't want me to see her in the hospital; I was just helping her become a better future Prospective.

"Benjamin Swan," the receptionist calls out.

He moves to stand up, but I grab him by the collar and pull him toward me. "Don't fucking do it. Please, I'll love you for—"

He pushes me off him with a look of pure disgust. "I'm going to volunteer. If you want to become a vampire too, you're just going to have to try to kill me for it like everyone else—"

"Benjamin Swan, please report to my desk immediately." The caterpillar receptionist is getting agitated; she keeps pressing the button above the door, causing it to strobe red.

I can't help but try one more time, not to stop him from entering the Morphing Games, but to convince him of one fact he will never believe. "Ben . . . just—I love you, okay?"

He sighs, and gives a little smile so soft for a moment I'm convinced that maybe this time it's worked. Maybe this time he'll forgive me. "You know, if I enter the games, I don't have to hear my big sister lie to me anymore. I can't think of a better prize."

It's funny, the feeling in my gut. I've been stabbed, cut, and broken more bones than promises, but hearing him say that? I don't think anything else hurts more. Shock creeps through me, forcing me to watch him as he walks away towards the receptionist.

He offers his ID, and the receptionist scans it. The shock wears off slightly to be replaced by surprise as Prim peeks from behind the door. He flirts lightly with her, smirking and gesticulating a little too wildly. She smiles and nods, though. I wonder if he's been harassing her. Pretty, rich, older woman, horny teenage boy—it wouldn't be the first time.

I contemplate waiting for him, but decide that I've already made enough of a scene for one day.

I have to meet Jacob, anyway. Glancing at the clock on the wall above the door, I realize I'm already late.


	3. 3

Authors Note: Huge thanks to PTB, making this baby readable for you guys. Also huge thanks to my reviewers. I am really humbled by the response I've gotten — which I know sounds funny because if you look at the numbers they aren't that high. But for me, my relationship with the readers is about quality not quantity and the quality of reviews I've gotten has been, frankly, astounding. So, thanks guys. . Warning, this story is dark and it only gets darker from here on out. Also warning to those sensitive E/B readers who are squicked out by even the hint of any other pairing, we get a little Jacob/B here. But I list this story as E/B for a reason and that's all I'll say on the subject.

[3]

"Great woman belong to history and to self sacrifice."

-Leigh Hunt

Next to the dark, run-down training center with all the windows, either punched out or boarded up, is the manhole I need. When I find it, I pull out the metal plate from the pavement and slip down into the darkness below.

My feet know every rung of the slimy, metal ladder leading down into the sewers, but it's always shocking after the last one, when they hit air and I'm left hanging. The bigger shock comes when I let go and drop into the water below. The drop isn't far and the water only a half-foot deep, but the dark makes everything feel more dangerous.

I can't use my flashlight for the descent because I need my hands to climb, but the moment I stop spluttering, I fish it from my pack and twist its nozzle. Light floods in front of me, illuminating the curved wall covered with stalactites of toilet paper and other miscellanea people flush.

The tunnels smell, but not much worse than my backyard, so I don't mind the journey; or maybe it's just nice not to be confronted with Rosalie's name everywhere I look.

After I've taken six right turns and seven left, I stop and locate the exit point with my flashlight before snuffing out the light and throwing it into my bag. The calluses on my hands tingle as I mange to grasp the rusty ladder on my first jump. I may not be able to wield an ax like our _honorable _winner, Rosalie, but I can jump and climb. Which is better than being a murdering bitch, anyway.

I would never say anything bad about the Blood Games, Volterra, or even Rosalie Hale aloud, no matter how much I want to. Inside the walls of the city, everything and everyone is in an informant, and the price of being ratted out is higher than the skyscrapers.

Because my mom sang a song at her birthday party calling President Aro an albino rat, she was changed to Chattel status. There was no trial. No one asked her if she really meant it. No one came by and knocked on our door and pulled her away from us as we said our tearful goodbyes. She just disappeared.

The letter we received, embossed with the blood-red seal of the Volturi, said her death was an honor to our family, wiping away the blemish of her treason. It said that we should be glad that all our money, house, possessions were transferred to the people who informed on us. Even the punished should revel in justice, the letter said.

I revel in justice in my mind in the city, but not for the punished. Unfortunately, it's a justice I will never be able to dole out. I don't even entertain the thought of it in any concrete way; that's how impossible rebellion against the informants, let alone the government, would be.

The only time I can escape the feeling of impotence is outside the walls of the city, the lake. Technically, it's illegal to leave the city, and I'm old enough that I'm risking Chattel status by doing so, but I have to. The fresh fish, and more importantly, flotsam, that land on the lake shore, are the only things keeping Charlie, Ben and me well fed.

The sewers bring me out about three or four miles from the city wall, onto a cracked and broken road overlooking a stretch of shore lined with boulders. Below the boulders, glass from the thousands of bottles thrown away by humans during the time of excess has been weathered into multicolored sand and pebbles of sea-glass, so that every time the white of a wave crashes against the crags of the rock, the spray is speckled with bits of rainbows. It's deceptively beautiful. This part of the lake is filled with toxic bacteria and not safe to swim in, but if you're careful to avoid the water you can walk on the beach.

On the other side of the road is a graveyard and the leaning against a headstone the boy who saved my life the night my brother lost his eye.

He's tall and his skin is almost black. Dark skin is considered a blemish, as the paleness of vampires is perpetually in fashion, but Jacob pulls it off.

As I move closer, I can see his lips moving, but it doesn't seem like he's talking to me. At least, I can't hear him, and Jacob has never had problems being too soft spoken.

"Hey, Jacob," I call as I vault easily over the black, wrought-iron fence.

Finally, he turns to look me, but to my surprise, takes a step back. "Bella," he greets me, but a little less warmly than usual. "Hey, you're here early?"

"Actually, I'm late — I think." I thread my way through the tombstones and statues. Much like the sewers, at first the meeting place of the graveyard was off putting, but now it feels familiar.

As I get closer I realize he's not just leaning on the headstone, but standing in front of a small obelisk, one hand behind him. It's amazing to see the purity of stone, tainted only by time and moss, not spray paint like everything inside the walls. The only things comparable are the statues from the Blood Bank, but the obelisk was made by human hands — not supernatural monsters.

To my surprise, the obelisk says, "Jacob! Is this Bella? The one you said you're in — " I would think it's Jacob playing a trick, but the obelisk sounds not like his imitation of a ghost, but like a girl, a young one.

I lean to one side in order to peer around. There, hiding behind the obelisk, holding Jacob's hand is a small girl. She can't be more than twelve or thirteen, and her skin is dark like Jacob's, her eyes wide and vulnerable. Instantly, I'm wary.

"Emily," Jacob says with a sigh.

I freeze. This is our place; this is the place where no one can hurt us, no one can inform on us. No one else should be here. No one. This is where I'm supposed to be able say things that would get me killed inside the city walls. Where I can laugh, smile, blush, and be human.

"Jacob," I say slowly as to contain the anxiety, "who is this?"

The little girl takes this as an invitation to launch herself at me, and I react that the way I was trained, bracing myself and catching her weight, using her momentum to rebuff her. She lands with a thump on her rear in a pile of leaves. They flutter up around her like a flock of autumn birds taking off.

"Owww!'" she yells. "I was just trying to give you a hug, jeeze!"

Jacob rushes to help pick her up, brushing the stray leaves stuck to her gray jumpsuit off.

"Did she follow you?"

"Hell, Bella, she's my sister. I bring her up when you can't come sometimes for company. You don't have to wrestle her." He presses her to his side tightly, protecting her from me.

Still, it doesn't matter that he's mad. His safety is more important than his affection. Jacob isn't the best at keeping things secret or vetting the people he tells those secrets to.

After my brother, Charlie and I moved to the poorer part of District 2, I had to move schools as well, exchanging my education Femme Training Elite, an academy specifically geared for toward preparing for the Morphing Games, to School #12, a coed manufacturing and 'life skills' institution . . . calling it an institution was being generous.

Jacob was the only boy whom I couldn't beat to a pulp, which meant that I had to be nice to him. But it wasn't until that night that we became friends, that he showed me the secret passage out of the city. I don't know what else we could have become after what he did for me.

I would've never hurt Jacob, but there's no way he could have known that at the time. It was foolhardy for him to take me in, and I'll be in debt to him for his stupidity for the rest of my life.

"Which sister?" I ask.

Jacob has six sisters and five brothers. His mother and father are breeders, given the edict to have as many babies as possible because of their superlative genes and delicious blood.

The girl smiles and I can see the familial resemblance, which eases me a little "I'm Emily. You gave me a rubber ducky. Well, Jacob did, but he said you found it. So thanks for that." She gives a warm smile, the same smile her brother has.

"You're welcome." I give her a pathetic mockery of one in return. "Jacob, I don't think this is a good idea."

He gives a little grunt sigh, and taps his fingers against the tombstone. "Bella, come on, the more hands on deck the bigger the haul. And you know my mom just had a new baby. We need the help."

"I won't tell anybody! Jacob made me promise." She holds her hand up high as if she's saying the Volterran Pledge of Allegiance. It makes me shudder.

I like this plan less and less.

"Does she know the rules?" I ask. "Not to get too close to the water."

"Yep!" she chimes, skipping around the tombstones like they're her playground.

I sigh. "Fine, but if she slows us down, she goes home."

"Deal!" yells Emily brightly, so loud I think a far away crow flies away out of fright.

We comb the beaches until it gets too dark to see. Emily is useful, despite how annoying she is, sometimes walking between Jacob and me, other times pointing and giggling at us like we're some kind of couple. But she has an eye for things on the beach that me and Jacob and I don't, and she's nimble, dodging easily every time a wave creeps too close to her tiny, bare, dark feet.

While I only find a plank of wood and a rusty piece of pipe and Jacob doesn't find anything at all— he's much better at fishing than combing— she finds a small bottle-cap pin, a scrap of net not too badly damaged and a couple of aluminum cans. Still, she slows us down.

"Look at all these colors, Jacob! It's so pretty! You should give one to Bella as a present," she says once, stopping at a particularly vivid collection of salmon sea-glass. "Maybe then she won't be such a stick in the sand," she whispers, unaware of my superlative hearing.

"Emmy-bear, we have to keep walking," says Jacob, but instead of hurrying her on, he picks her up in his arms and carries her forward.

I roll my eyes and pick up my pace. I trust Jacob with my life. He's my only friend, but that doesn't mean I have to put up with his sister invading our place and calling me names. I would never bring my brother here, but then again I would never call my brother "Benny-Bear". I think that would be the final straw for him; he'd try and strangle me in my sleep.

Behind me I hear her giggling and urging Jacob to carry her faster like a good little horsie. I hope this doesn't become a routine. I don't know if I can deal with her in the close quarters of the small fishing kayak we have stowed further up shore where the bacteria aren't as strong.

Thankfully, it's too cold to fish today. We can only fish during the summer, when we're sure that if we capsize we won't die of hypothermia.

By twilight we're back at the graveyard, and Jacob and "Emmy-bear" seem to be more merry than humanly possible. I just want to go home and sleep; unfortunately, I'll only have an hour or two before the midnight Reaping.

I've been avoiding thinking about it; that's kind of my strategy for dealing with things I can't change like the blood quotas, my brother, my mother. But in the end, my mind always rebels against me, wielding the sword of guilt and the shield of facts.

The fact is this: if my brother volunteers, he's going to die. Whatever feel-good nonsense he tells himself about his eye, there's no way he can win the games half-blind. Maybe if he had another skill to make up for it, but being able to lift rusty weights and insult your sister won't help when a bulky tribute from District 4 comes at you with a trident.

Theoretically, I could volunteer, beat him in hand-to-hand combat and take his place, entering the one game I want more than anything not to play.

My nightmares are haunted with the Morphing Games' exercises from training school: how to test the soundness of rickety bridges, how to use a reed as a snorkel when under pursuit, how to trick someone into trusting you before snapping their neck, how to torture them if they have information you need, but mostly how to kill them if they don't. God, hasn't the Morphing Games tortured me enough? Will I really enter the Games so they can do it some more, so that they can laugh at me and bet on my suffering? Dance, human dance!

Yes. I will do anything to save my brother. Not because I love him— I don't know if it's possible to love someone that hates you as much as Ben hates me—but because I owe him.

There's only one problem. My brother is a boy and I can only volunteer to take the place of someone who is the same gender as me. I can feel another option on the edge of my brain, like acid rain on a tin roof, tapping and burning.

"Bella," Jacob says. "Thoughts taking you to worry-land again?" He's alone now, standing near a single tombstone on the edge of the graveyard.

"Where's Emily?" I ask. I don't want her to know my secrets. Having her here while we combed was bad enough.

He mistakes my concern for privacy for concern for her welfare. "I told Emily to go to the sewers and wait there. She'll be fine. Now, what's up?"

Guilt shoots through me at forcing a twelve-year old into the sewers just so I can talk to my friend. "It's nothing."

It's not fair for me to burden Jacob, happy, carefree Jacob who has a sister with a nickname and a smile that, if I'm honest, makes me want to pick her up and never let her go too.

"Bella," he groans. "Just tell me. you know what they say— 'the best Bloodletting is a quick one.' Get it over fast."

"Whatever, I said it's nothing. Let's go."

I try and hurry past him, but he grabs my arm. "Come on, Bella; I know you. It's about Ben, isn't it?"

"Yeah," I mumble lamely, prying his fingers from my arm.

He pivots to face me, nods and raises an eyebrow. "And?"

"He wants to volunteer, and he can; he's sixteen now."

Jacob's face falls. "Volunteer?"

I roll my eyes. Why does everyone seem to have such a hard time understanding the concept? "Go fight in the Morphing Games. If he's lucky he'll become a murderer, and if he's not he'll become a corpse."

"He's not one of those idiot careers, so why would he ever—" He stops himself, realizing that he's talking about me, or at least who I used to be.

I give a knowing smile. "It's alright; I _was _stupid back then. But it was also all I knew. I didn't study manufacturing or construction or cleaning like we do in trade school."

I don't like to talk about the time before, and Jacob knows that. He has a vague idea of what training school was like, but I had never stated it explicitly. "I studied how to win the Morphing Games, how to kill people, how to kill my friends. And my brother did too, although not for as long."

He shakes his head. "That's sick, Bella. To want to be in the Morphing Games, to train for it."

I can't help but find the whole thing a little ironic. "You know that most of the careers, the ones who train their whole lives, they all think that you poor people are the ones with it bad."

His hand snakes into mine and pulls me closer. We've held hands before, but not like this. I mean, he makes the occasional innuendo, but I don't feel those feelings that other girls talk about, and certainly not for someone like Jacob, who feels more like my brother than my real one ever had. But I don't move away. Maybe it makes me a coward, but I can't lose his friendship just because I don't have a crush on him back.

"You know," he says quietly, a twinkle in his eye. "You're one of us poor people too now."

I don't say anything to this, because the truth is, as much as I love Jacob, I haven't felt like a part of anything since my family crumbled. This, our space in the rainbow beach and preserved gravestones, it's an escape. It's a dream.

He touches a strand of my hair, and I can't help but back away a little. He lets me go. "Emily likes you, in spite of you being jealous of her." Most of the time Jacob Black is oblivious, but sometimes he surprises me with how perceptive he can be.

"I'm not jealous," I say just a little too quickly. The thought never occurred to me, but I suppose it's a little true. I only have one friend, and the thought that anything might happen to him, that I'd be alone like before . . .

He smirks. "Don't worry. There's plenty of Black for all the ladies." He flexes a thick bicep and waggles his eyebrows as if to suggest that I could have a piece of the Jacob Black pie, right now, right here on the beach if I wanted.

I can't help but laugh. I don't laugh often, and Jacob's the only one who can ever make me. "I'm just mad because she called me a stick in the sand." I give a fake pout. As if this is the worst insult I've ever heard.

He tilts his head back, laughing too. "Bella, she's twelve. All she wants to do is look at pretty sea-glass."

I don't remember what it was like to be twelve and want to pick up sea-glass. I remember learning how to boil water using magnifying glasses, which points of the human body are most vulnerable to pressure, how to check for signs of life on a corpse, then if they are present, learning how to eliminate them.

"Of course if you want to actually do work she's going to call you names. She's called me worse things than stick in the sand, but that doesn't mean she hates me or something."

"My brother hates me."

"You always say that," Jacob says carefully. "But I remember that night, Bella . . . what you were going to do, just because you were worried you had failed him. How could he hate a sister who cared about him as much as that?"

This time it's me who laughs, but it's distorted, bitter and quiet. "You don't understand."

"Bella, I was there; how could I not understand?"

Because I lied to you, I want to say. Because you weren't there, not really. You just saw the aftermath.

Jacob's never asked if there's something I'm not telling him; he's always believed he has a complete understanding of what happened. Although it leads to impasses like this, it's the only way our friendship works. If he ever suddenly gets clever enough to realize that there are gaps in the story, if he ever asks me about what he doesn't understand, I'd have to tell him. And that would be the end of their friendship.

We sit in silence for a moment; his hand inches toward mine, but doesn't touch it. I know that if I move a little closer he would have me in his arms. I stay still.

"I have a plan, you know, if he volunteers." The moment I say it I wish I hadn't. Jacob will not understand this precariously constructed second option I have. I don't even understand it; it's insane.

"Going to call on Jacob Black to save the day?" He's still laughing, his eyes finding crannies and nooks of my body to stare at. He's been doing that more and more lately.

"I'm going to volunteer too."

The smile doesn't fall from his face, just evaporates so quick I'm hesitant to say it was ever there. "No."

"I won't kill my brother. Although, I won't be surprised if he thinks that. I'll protect him. I'll kill who I have to kill and in the end, I'll let him emerge the victor."

"L-let him emerge-" Jacob stutters.

My gaze drifts out to the waves crashing against the rocks. I imagine drowning in multi-colored sand and bacteria water. There are worse ways to die than in mosaics of soft glass every color of the rainbow. I'll probably be facing them soon.

When I tilt my head to look at him, I'm surprised by how angry his face is; he's almost snarling.

"Fuck it, Bella. I get you want to protect Ben. But what has he ever done for you? You've told me the things he says, what he does. You bust your ass everyday to keep his quotas intact, and he doesn't give a shit."

I don't say anything. At my silence Jacob's face falls a little. He reaches out to touch my shoulder, but stops before his hand makes contact.

"I'm sorry; I didn't mean to insult your brother."

"No." I shrug. "It's true. He doesn't give a shit about me, at least not the good kind."

"So then, why volunteer? I mean, it's not like he's being forced to go against his will."

"It's just something I have to do," I say.

He's not happy with this answer. Some part of me worries that he will never be happy again if I die in the Games. He's never had to think about death. Sure, occasionally his mother lost a baby while it was still in the womb, but Jacob had never lost anyone whose face he'd seen, whose name he'd known. One of the upshots of being from a breeder family is having automatically superior blood, just by the luck of genetics. It doesn't win money, but it does win safety from blood quotas.

I imagine that if I had been born to the rambunctious Black house, my life would have been a lot different.

But now, I've brought my problems, my twisted world, into his relatively perfect one. It seems Rosalie is right; the only way I can express love is by hurting the people I care about.

"You know what, Bella?" He's calmed down slightly, but I can still see hints of real anger through his optimism. "If you volunteer, I'll volunteer too. If I can beat you in a fight, then I sure as hell can beat your puny brother."

Jacob is such a child, but even in his immaturity I feel affection for him. I jump off a bridge and what does he do? Follow. Sometimes, I wonder if he is my real little brother and Ben is just some imposter. This makes me hate myself even more.

"Jacob," I say patiently, "you can't."

"Why not?" He's only a few steps away from sticking out his tongue.

"Your family, Emily, what would they do without you?"

His brow furrows, and I can see he hasn't thought of this. "They would manage," he says, but there's hesitation between every syllable.

"No," I say firmly, "they wouldn't. The breeding stipend isn't enough to feed everybody, and they need the fish and the money from selling junk."

"Your dad needs you," he counters.

"My dad's a ghost; you can't hurt a ghost, not really." I know this from experience. After Mom died I shouted at Charlie that I wished he was were dead, that he made me wish _I_ were dead. He didn't even blink.

"There's gotta be a way to make your brother not volunteer," he says firmly, "I'll take some of the gang and beat him up."

"If he rats you out for interfering with the Reaping, you'll all be changed to Chattel. And make no mistake, he _will_ rat you out, Jacob."

Muffled from the manhole, I hear a high pitched voice. "Jaaacob, come on! It smells like your farts in here. Have you been eating the Mexican flavored Blood Bars again?"

"You should go," I say. "I think your sister is stuck in the sewer."

He looks like he's going to join Emily, but then he pulls my hand closer to his. This time I let, him because know now that I've said my plan that if my brother volunteers, I will execute it. There is a good chance this will be our last meeting on the graveyard by the beach.

His lips whisper chastely over my cheek, giving just one peck. "If you asked me to, I would volunteer in his place. I know I haven't been trained, but I've watched the Games on TV like everyone else."

His lower lips trembles slightly, his brow furrowed. A feeling stirs in my chest, one I know well: guilt. It sharpens the blade of empathy that twists in my gut. I should have never told him my plan, never put that burden on him. But if I didn't tell anyone, no one would know if I failed my brother.

"I'll never ask that of you, Jacob," I say softly.

His eyes are as wide as his sister's. "Can I ask you something, then?" He looks down at the ground shyly, so different from the boy flexing his muscles.

"What?"

"Can I kiss you, just once? You don't have to say yes if you don't want to."

I nod stiffly, afraid, that if I open my mouth I'll cry. Then slowly, he lowers his lips onto mine. They are soft, warm and real, and while I don't want to put my hand in his hair, or rub myself up against him, or for him to put his tongue in my mouth, I also don't want him to go either.

All to soon, his lips leave mine.

"I've wanted to do that for a long time," he says. He's so close, I can smell his breath. He _has_ been eating Mexican Blood bars; the thought almost makes me laugh.

"You're smiling," he says in wonder. "I love it when you smile." He cups my face gently, as if checking the freshness of a flower.

It hurts, the way he looks at me. I'm not beautiful; I'm not innocent. And he can never know, or he'd hate me as much as my real brother does. I close my eyes.

"Can I ask you something?" he asks.

"Again?"

"Wear something pretty for the Reaping," he says lightly.

He gives a long sigh, and I feel terrible that I'm the cause of it. If only I were less selfish and didn't tell him about my brother.

When I open my eyes, only a few seconds later, he's gone. All I can see is a half open manhole cover. I wait a minute before following them, perusing the names of the gravestones.

The one on the end is my favorite, although I can't say why. Maybe because it's alone, keeping its secrets for eternity. Maybe because sometimes in the sunlight it sparkles a little. Maybe it's the way the name is etched so cleanly onto the old stone.

_Edward Anthony Masen 1901-1927_

"You lucky bastard," I say to the grave, "you got out of here when the going was still good."

And then I too descend back into the manhole, and to my fate.

Authors note:

Anyone whose curious go to orringtonrose dot wordpress dot com

Back story, pictures—even audio, as well as directors commentary on chapters can all be found there.

Also if you review you get a teaser! So please feed the writer's hungry ego.


	4. 4

Authors Note:

This explicitly depicts abuse, within the mind of the abuser. It was very hard for me to write, but I believe it is necessary for the story. I didn't do it to be gratuitous or titillate. That said, if you have triggers, I'd suggest you stop reading **right****now**. Even if you don't, this chapter is very emotionally intense. If you find yourself easily disturbed by depictions of emotional trauma, I strongly discourage you from reading this chapter. It also contains references to attempted—but unsuccessful— **suicide.** As usual, huge thanks to PTB (in particular Someone Aka Me) and my lovely reviewers. Again, I'm flattered and humbled by your response to the story. Reviews feed the starving artist's ego, so toss me some crumbs! I'll give you a teaser in return. More info, including a visual glossary, director's commentary and musical playlist can be found at orringtonrose dot wordpress dot com. ALSO CHECK OUT THE NEW TRAILER!

[4]

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

JamesMadison

On Reaping night, even the Gray Levels are encouraged to look like human beings and not drone-workers. So I wash my face until it hurts and try to comb the knots from my windblown, brown hair before hiding the scraggly ends in an inside-out twist.

I don't think I've worn it like this since training; my mother used to put it up when I was in training school, when she was alive. It reminds me of rising early before school, being so tired in the shower that I would rest my head against the chipped tile. Reveling in the warm water against my muscles, which were always already sore from the previous day's exercise. Practicing knife drills under the table at breakfast to cram for the latest quiz.

I guess I'll have to remember knife drills again. Trying to suppress panic at the thought, I run through different wrestling holds and pressure points in my head. I rifle through the cardboard box containing all of my private possessions. There's not much: a small photograph of Mom, Dad and me as a child before Ben was born; a few pairs of holey, dirty socks; and the dress.

The dress was my mother's, blue with thousands of tiny, white polka dots. She wore it the night of her birthday, the night before she was killed. It's wrinkly, the white collar folded awkwardly, and I'm surprised that it fits me as it comes over my head. A little tight and too short— I got my father's genes when it comes to height — but not bad. From its collar hang two blue ribbons. I don't remember how my mother tied them; the only knots I know are ones to bring ropes together, or to moor the kayak, or for nooses and traps. I settle for tying them in a double fisherman's knot, the kind used to bring two ropes together.

The door creaks behind me.

"Knock first!" I shout.

Charlie peeks out quietly from behind the door with wide eyes, like a small animal staring out from hiding. He mumbles something, low and under his breath.

I almost faint. Charlie, speaking? "Sorry, what?"

"You tied it wrong," he grunts louder. He points to the fisherman's knot.

"Oh, how does it go?" I try to give an encouraging smile, but my face feels paralyzed.

He takes a step closer, his big hand nimbly unpicking my knot. Then he ties it into loose loops, flopping like wings of a butterfly.

"What do you call this?"

"Bow," he mumbles.

"Did Mom wear it like this?"

I know I've made a mistake, mentioning Mom. His jaw clicks as he grits his teeth. It's not until my foot has found purchase against the cold, naked concrete floor that I realize that my first reaction upon making a mistake is to take a defensive stance.

He bows his head and shuffles backward. From the other room, I hear the front door slam; I glance beyond the door way, and see Ben. He doesn't meet my gaze. When I turn back, Charlie's gone.

I look down at the elegant bow tied on my chest and finger it delicately. It makes me want to cry. I shake my head and think of knife drills. Upper cut, block, stab, upper cut—

"I need the room." It's Ben— thin, roaming, glassy eye, messy hair. He's not bad looking, despite the eye; he's got a strong jaw like Charlie.

"What, why?"

He holds up a hand, and in it I see a piece of cloth, corduroy, maybe. "Got to change into my reaping clothes." He unfolds the clothing to reveal a brown jacket and a pair of raggedy black slacks with a single patch of yellow fabric right over the kneecap.

"How did you afford those?" I ask.

"Prim gave them to me."

"Prim?" I didn't know that my brother was seeing anyone, but I'm not surprised that he is; he's charming. But still, who could he be seeing that would be rich enough to buy those kind of clothes for him? Unless . . . "You don't mean the nurse at the Blood Bank you were flirting with?"

He scowls. "Can I change now?"

"She's older than me." I try to keep the scorn out of my voice, but I can't help it. Just because you decide not to hurt someone, doesn't mean you automatically love them and agree with their every morally-suspect decision.

"Fuck you." He tosses his head, bringing his overgrown brown hair to cover his eye. A defense mechanism.

I glance at the clothes he clutches tightly and his uneasy expression. "Hey," I say gently, "if you wanted clothes, you only had to ask. It could have been an early birthday present. You didn't have to do things."

"I'm not prostituting myself. That's what you do when you go out in the sewers and meet up with the breeder boy." He thrusts his hips forward, imitating the act.

I clench my fists so hard my nails probably draw blood from my palms. "Don't provoke me."

"Why not? Want to finish up the other eye like you did the first?"

"That was an acci—"

"You don't blind someone by accident."

I turn around and viciously kick the cardboard box so I don't roundhouse my brother in the kneecaps. "I'm trying to change."

"I don't care if you bring me cookies or try to make sure that my blood levels stay right or check that I'm not driven to sell my body like you do yours. It doesn't matter if you change, Bella, because this," he points at the eye, "will still be the same."

"I made one mistake." I kick the cardboard box again, harder, and my toe makes contact with something inside of it. Crack.

Something breaks.

I get on my knees to find the thing I kicked. "I didn't mean to do it." 

"Don't lie, not about this," he says as evenly as he can, watching me sift through the contents of the cardboard box.

Even though I can't see him, I feel his eyes on me, accusing and sad.

"You're right," I murmur, my hands closing around the object my toe bruised itself against — the photo, the only photo I had of my family. Damnit.

"You were the only person I . . . " he stammers, before stopping himself, but I can hear in his voice he wants to say more, he wants to tell me.

Sometimes, I forget that my brother probably misses the way things used to be between us just as much as I do. At the bottom of the anger and accusations, the wound that probably really festers is loneliness, longing.

But he stoppers up the truth and says instead, "You can't just say it was a mistake."

"I know," I say softly.

He shuffles around me and toward the window, looking out. "Just get out and let me get dressed, alright?"

I leave without another word, clutching the broken picture frame. I will never get forgiveness from my brother. Even if I do die for him in the games, he'll believe it's a malicious coincidence until the day he dies.

The edges of the shards are sharp, and I handle them carefully as I separate the picture from the broken frame. From beneath slivers of glass, my mother stares out at me, the warmth of her eyes not quite a comfort.

It's funny— sometimes when I look out the window of my room at twilight, looking at the all the beautiful colors of the sky, or feel the cool sand beneath my feet with Jacob, or even smile at a joke, it hurts. I experience every good thing with the secret assumption that I'll lose it.

The gentleness of my mom's smile across her face in the photograph is the hardest beauty to bear, because it's already gone. And the real secret I hold inside of me, the truth that drove me to beat my own brother until he bled, is that I lost my mother long before she died.

It all began the year I got second rank and became best friends with Rosalie Hale. I was getting better and better in school and was beginning to seriously consider entering the Morphing Games. My father was proud of the way I could disarm a man almost twice my size in a knife fight, mix poisons from berries, and most of all — take a beating. It didn't matter how many bruises I came home with, I never cried.

My mother never said she was proud; in fact, the higher up I advanced in the rankings, the less she talked to me. I'll never know if it was because she couldn't stand to see me black and blue from school everyday, or if it was that she was disgusted with the thought of her daughter becoming a murderer. Or maybe there was just something about me she couldn't stand.

It wouldn't have been so bad if she didn't lavish more and more attention on my brother. My brother, who couldn't throw a dagger or paint a convincing camouflage, who didn't know the ins and outs of winning the affections of vampire sponsors, and on top all of those deficiencies, didn't even know the most important skill of all: how to back down.

That night after the party, she waved me away citing exhaustion, but when _he_ knocked on her door, she answered. The walls of our house were thin enough that if I pressed my ear against the headboard of my bed, I could hear him sniffling a anrying as he no doubt toddled into her room. What a pathetic little snot, I thought. Dad said Swans weren't supposed to cry.

But my mom wasn't my dad, and when my brother cried, she suddenly magically shed her exhaustion and took him into her arms. I'm not sure, because she was whispering, but I swear I could hear her singing.

"I'll love you forever."

I held my pillow so tight the stuffing started to pop out of the end. I bit my lip, taking deep shuddering breaths. I would not cry. As I buried myself in the womb of sheets, curled up fetally against the wall listening to the whispers, I won the battle. I didn't cry. Maybe I should've.

After Mom left and we had to move, he got along with everyone. It seemed like he had finally found his place, where friendships were won with charisma, not fists.

For that first year, I was alone in a world I didn't understand, without anybody who cared about me, having to come home everyday and see the last person my mother told she loved, the person she loved more than me. And the one certainty of my life, violence, had been taken away from me. It's not an excuse, just an explanation.

There was no one to tell me not to hit him. In school, all fighting was regulated to minimize injuries, not prevent them. We were supposed to help each other become tougher future Prospectives; that was the foundation of all of our peer to peer relationships.

The problem was, my brother didn't want to be helped. He wanted someone to laugh at his horrible jokes, help him figure out how fix the radiator, or assemble the manufacturing homework. I didn't know how to do that; all I knew was how to fight. That was all I could teach him.

At first he wanted to learn, but after a couple bruises, he whined about not wanting to deal with the training school anymore and quit. I didn't understand how you could do that, quit. Fighting was what the Swans were built for, that's what my dad always said. And so, even though I knew he'd say no, after a particularly trying day of being snickered at by girls in Home Ec for being unable to fold a sheet properly, I asked my brother to spar.

"I have to finish my homework."

"Just five minutes. I'll go easy on you."

"I said I don't want to train anymore."

"We'll just do blocks. That won't even hurt."

"No."

"You can hit me. Hit me as hard as you want. "

"Will you get over yourself, Bella. We're not in training school anymore."

I grabbed the chair he was sitting in, yanked it out from underneath him. I didn't understand why he got to wear his deficiencies like a badge of honor. I didn't understand why people liked him for his weaknesses, his inability to fight.

"Come on, you've got to toughen up." My hands snaked around his stomach. I knew if I squeezed hard enough I could of broken a rib.

He tried to wiggle out of my hold, but his muscles weren't as developed as mine. "Stop it," he whined.

I had knowledge of fighting-physics on my side. People who fight fair fight to lose. Still, I loosened my grip. "Fight back."

"I feel bad for you, Bella." He gave me a sad look.

I laughed, as if this was all an exercise, as if the stakes weren't so high that neither of us could even see them anymore. "Just try and get out of my grip, Ben."

His eyes were all twinkling and tender, like I was a wounded animal he had found underneath a porch. He was so sincere it hurt to look at him. Was I ever that sincere, that stupid? "I'm sorry you don't have any friends."

"Stop talking, dumbass, and fight me."

"I could be your friend." Every word of his was just steeped in pity. Not sympathy, though, because he didn't understand— he couldn't. "All he had was pity, which he felt from his far-away, shining city, where he was appreciated by his friends and could remember that his mother loved him. And yet he was so much less than me in every way I had been taught was valuable.

I grabbed his hair and pulled his neck back. That wasn't training; that was anger. Out of control. If my brother had an ounce of fighting ability, he should have been able to throw me off balance. I was lunging around wildly and without plan.

He screamed as I pulled his head back farther, a little boy's scream, high and breathy.

"Mom!" he keened.

He looked so young then. Twelve-year-olds shouldn't have to call out for dead mothers that will never come. I pulled back, disgusted with myself.

What was I doing? He was my brother; he was just a kid. I could already see the bruises blossoming on his arms. If I missed my mother so much, than why was I hurting the one person she cared about?

I was just about to loosen my hold when the door opened.

Charlie.

He looked at us, entwined together in a way that clearly could not have been pleasant. My hand pulling back my brother's head—hard. Pain was embossed across my brother's irises like burning letters.

I was sure that he was finally going to speak, going to tear us apart, going to reprimand me for hurting my brother so bad, going to reprimand my brother for provoking it (even though he hadn't; my dad always took my side).

He blinked, once.

I almost dropped Ben, to explain, to apologize. To say that I just couldn't take the way my whole world had become inverted. I was older; I was supposed to be in control.

But before I could, Charlie shuffled around us, walked through the door on the other side, and shut the door.

And that's when he wasn't my father anymore.

I turned to Ben. "I'm sorry."

He looked me up and down once, that damn magnanimous expression on his face. My brother was always so generous, but he always seemed to give people- well me at least, things- I didn't want.

"It's okay," he said, as if he had won.

"I'm leaving, going on a walk. Don't follow me." I didn't mean for it to come out so harsh, but it did.

"Wait—"

I could feel the words he was about to say before he said them. I should have covered my ears; I should have steeled myself somehow. I had been taught to withstand taunting; discipline was a central principal of training school.

But the people at training school never knew the weak-spots in your emotional armor. Or if they did, they didn't use them; there were rules of combat even in training school. You beat people up, sure, you spread gossip, rumors lies, sure, but you never, ever brought the two together.

Ben wasn't good at training school, not any part of it, but I thought he would of at least learned this one most crucial rule.

I'm sorry too," he said, although there was a gleam in his eyes that shown like he was going to say something unforgivable, and he knew it.

"For what?" I asked, trembling from the aftershocks of anger.

He bit his lip, trying to contain something— a cry, a smile? I wasn't sure which. "I'm sorry that Mom loved me more."

It didn't matter that he was a kid, that there was a good chance he was wrong, that he was saying it as a shield against my violence, that he didn't understand the consequences.

Because he meant every last word.

I went insane from it.

I don't fully remember what happened after that, but suddenly there was blood, too much blood. He held his face, just screaming, "I can't see. Why can't I see?"

I carried the twitching body of my brother to the hospital, paid the high fees on credit that I didn't have. But it didn't matter; they couldn't save the eye. Some part of me knew they wouldn't be able to from the moment I charged.

Looking at him in the haphazard examination room, I knew something else. They couldn't save me either. I had blinded my own brother out of hurt, out of rage. It was no wonder my mother didn't love me. I was the monster— not the vampires, not society, not the rules. Me.

I went out to an old abandoned warehouse the next day. They taught us how to tie a noose in year four, so I knew the how to.

The Why was a little bit more complicated. It force telling me that I was an awful person burned strong in my chest. Strong and bright. So bright I couldn't bear to look at it, or think about it. I just knew I hurt and that I deserved to hurt even more. They always told us at school that District 2 was about justice, about peace.

There was only one way I knew to get both of them.

I climbed up onto the piping on the ceiling via tottering tower of half-broken bookshelves and was just finished tying when someone said-

"Stop."

Jacob Black didn't look anything like my brother as he called out from the doorway, but the way his eyes glanced up at me reminded me of the way my brother used to look when he'd catch me cheating at cards under the blankets.

For the first time, I felt guilt for my brother, not just shame, not just horror, but guilt, because I remembered what he had been.

After the guilt came the rush, the feeling of falling, the understanding of the loss. For my father, for my mother, even for my brother, who would never be the same.

I fell from the rafters into Jacob's arms, and for the first time in conscious memory, I wept. I sobbed. I screamed.

Because, the truth was, I didn't hate my brother. I never did. I hated that I believed that he saw me as I really was. I hated myself.

I alienated and hurt the one person who wanted to like me, wanted to help me, because I was proud, because I was afraid.

And that day in the rafters? I was still afraid. Afraid of facing the consequences. So afraid, I was thinking of doing the one thing Swans never did: quit.

I was going to kill myself as a cop-out to dodge the consequences of what I'd done. And as Jacob Black, although I didn't know his name then, held me, this strange wild girl he found up in the rafters, I realized that if I left, I would just be doing myself a favor by running away.

So when Jacob Black asked why I was trying to kill myself, I told him a lie that happened to be true. I said that my brother had just had surgery to try and save his eye, and even though it didn't work, I wouldn't be able to afford the cost of the hospital. He told me he had a secret place, a place outside the city walls where he fished and found things to sell on the black market.

It was the secret place that saved my life. It was the thought that I wasn't alone, that someone could trust me, even at my most pathetic, degenerate point. I thought trust was dead, thought I should be dead too. but it wasn't. I wasn't. After all I had done, some random boy still trusted me. I wasn't forgiven, but there was still a little grace left for me in the world.

After that day, I never hit my brother again. I vowed that I would do whatever it took to look out for him. Not make to things right, because making things right would never be possible. I thought a couple of times about offering him the chance to punch me in the eye. An eye for an eye. But he likes seeing the pain of the guilt in my eyes too much to blind them.

What he never understood was that thing, I feel most guilty about isn't the eye or the bruises, it's that after the eye he decided he wanted to enter the Morphing Games. That was when he decided he wanted to hurt people too.


	5. 5

Authors Note: Hey guys, thanks so much for all of the review! Really lovely. I'd like to tell you that the more you review the faster I update, but that's just not true. The thanks for the quick update go to my lovely Betas. Someone Aka Me and ChloeCougar. As usually check out the blog, Orringtonrose dot wordpess. We have a trailer now! Apologies if there are extra errors this Word has been acting up.

[5]

In silence Ben, Charlie, and I move up the marble stairs between the two statues of the child-vampires and into the main hall of the Blood Bank.

The main hall is circular with vaulted ceilings frescoed with the red-eyed angels rolling green hills, and vines laden with grapes.

But tonight the grandeur is overshadowed by one thing: cameras. There are at least a hundred of them. Many are on the ceiling, perched upside-down like bats, others are on the walls and still more are on the floor. Their robotic heads turn stiffly every couple of seconds to catch a new target. The cameras don't just record video; the edges of the wide lenses are bearded with black, foamy microphones.

As I pass through the double doors, for one second it feels as if every camera has swiveled in my direction. I don't have time to care.

"Ben," I whisper, worried that the microphones will catch my words, "if you really like Prim, if you really do, then you shouldn't volunteer."

"Don't talk to me," he says stiffly before turning and walking away over to the roped off section for the sixteen-year-old boys. As I watch him go, I notice that one of his pant-legs is tucked into his sock. I want to run up to him and fix it. I want so badly to fix everything.

But I can't. There's nothing I can do that will change what happened. I'm just about to turn to go to the pen for the twenties, resigned to the fact that my world is about to end—again—and there's nothing I can do about it, when a flash of blonde hair garners attention.

Someone pulls my brother aside before he gets to the tent. There's only person it could be—Prim.

I wish I could get closer so I could hear, but the crowd obstructs my view, and I know if I move closer that Ben will notice. And if Prim is doing what I think she is, than there's nothing more important than her having Ben's full focus.

She motions upwards to the rafters. At who, I don't know. Her family? She points to him again. He shakes his head before wrenching his arm free from her grasp and stomping to the pen for the sixteen-year-olds.

I look for Jacob in the pen of eighteen-year olds, but, unsurprisingly, I can't find him. There are almost ten thousand people here. Most are in the infinitely large upper rafters. Only possible future Prospectives, city officials, and vampires from the Capitol are on the ground floor.

The rafters are where Charlie must have headed, because when I turn to look he's gone too. I sigh and thread my way through the crowd to the last pen on the right, the one for the twenty-year olds.

I watch from behind the rope as the rest of the possible Prospectives file into the pens, as parents separate from their anxious children to go sit in the rafters. The poor children are gaunt and terrified that their name will be called and no one will volunteer. The rich look keen, all except one boy who heads to the sixteens' pen to stand next to my brother. He seems almost bored. His blonde hair looks familiar.

An instrument that sounds like a duck begins to play the first notes of the Volterran National Anthem. Tension spreads across the crowd. No one likes the anthem, but we're not expected to. It's vampire music.

Vampires don't exist in the same sound world as humans. They can process thousands of different melodies and harmonies, so the sounds of the human scale aren't enough to make interesting music for them. Their songs are made up of the spaces between normal notes.

The music comes from speakers hidden beneath the frescos, making it sound as if the angels are screaming the strange, fractured melodies.

After the anthem, a woman steps up to the platform. Even from far away—the pen for the twenties is located near the back of the atrium—I am struck by the symmetry in her face, the gloss of her perfectly coiffed blonde hair. I hate that every time I see a vampire I'm always forced to worship their beauty.

She has no need to step up to a microphone to project her voice; we are dead silent. Everyone's seen the videos from the days of the rebellion, where a single vampire killed hundreds of humans at once, so fast the camera almost couldn't keep up.

"Greetings, and welcome to the 100th annual Morphing Games," she says with a bounce, "May you die and become!"

Applause, same as every year, echoes through the hall.

"What a time of year it is! A young man and woman will be granted the opportunity to compete, risking their most valuable asset to the empire—their vitality—in order to pursue the most honored goal . . . immortality. "

She gives a wide smile that would be warm, if not for the fangs peeking out over her too-bright lips. "I am Tanya Denali, and I am pleased to serve as the liaison for District 2. I am even more excited to announce that there will be some modifications to the rules this year, in honor of the anniversary of the founding of the Volterran Empire."

Whispers ripple outward from the souls brave enough to comment. I say nothing. She gives a firm stare to the foci of the commotion and silence descends again.

"President Aro has decided that the streets of Volterra are crowded with old blood and old ways. Too long: has cynicism ruled. Innocence is the rarest commodity in the Capitol. We need it badly. For all the things we give to you, protection, stability, it is time you began giving us your greatest export. So, we've decided to open up the brackets. Instead of allowing only sixteen through twenty year olds the glorious opportunity to become immortal, we are allowing anyone over the age of twelve."

She claps her hands together and smiles like a child. "Isn't that delightful?"

Bile emerges from my stomach and burns my throat. The images of the statues flit over my eyes. Children, just like I was, drafted into violence. Only, for them the consequences of failure would be more than a few broken bones. It would be death.

"Rosalie, quickly now!" summons Tanya.

From the shadows emerges last year's winner, my former best friend, the girl who broke my bones, taught me the importance of violence, and sinned against me in another way so heinous I can't even say it.

Her blonde hair is brighter than Tanya's, her lips redder, and her green eyes fiercer. She is sharp to Tanya's blurriness. This must be why Tanya treats her like a servant; because she knows Rosalie looks like a queen.

Fierce applause swells up for Rosalie, originating mostly from those wearing colorful clothes: the rich. They welcome their goddess back with frenzied clapping. She stares out at the crowd, smiling, and even though she has fangs, the applause surges further, all talk of murderous children gone.

In her hand is a silver box.

"Please," Tanya says, and this is all it takes to quitet. Because, while we know that Rosalie is beautiful, it is Tanya who will kill us if we don't obey.

"Let's begin with the boys' names. Remember, volunteers, please wait until the name is called."

I look over at my brother, hoping that whatever he feels for the Blood Bank worker, Prim, is enough to convince him to stay.

Rosalie sticks one of her hands into the box.

Take any child, just not my brother.

It doesn't matter if he hates me; I love him. I always have, even as I beat him I did. I wasn't beating him to hurt him really; I was hurting him to hurt myself.

I find my brother's eyes, and he notices me too, even from far away. And then, in what must be a miracle, he slowly shakes his head back and forth. It means no, he's not going to volunteer. We are safe. He is safe. He is not a monster. I didn't destroy his goodness when I destroyed his eye.

And then Rosalie calls out the name; with a ringing soprano, so clear there can be no mistaking it.

"Benjamin Swan."

Shock courses through me as I watch my brother walk stiff-jointed up to the podium. The crowd parts easily before him, curious to see the new contender, examining him for strengths and weaknesses. I'm sure that everyone notices his eye. I see a couple of the training school kids snickering at him because of it.

Finally, he reaches the stage. I'm proud of him because he's standing tall, even though his jacket is too big, and everyone can smell the fear on him. When they show this video to the other Prospectives later he will be marked as an easy target, but not the easiest.

"Well now, Benjamin Swan, you will be the lucky Prospective, unless we have a volunteer who wants to duel you for the right," says Tanya, clapping my brother so hard on the back that he stumbles.

I had almost forgotten. My brother could be saved, and he probably will be. Someone usually volunteers . . . usually.

But the rules are different this year. The Prospectives will have to kill children. The Careers were bloody and brutal but they had pride. There was no glory to be gained from slitting the throat of someone who struggled to tie their shoe.

For a moment I can almostconvince myself that my brother will be fine, that everything will be alright. He has been training, and most of the kids from the other districts haven't had any training at all.

But then I see his pant leg, tucked right into his sock. All my rationalizations come avalanching down, suffocating me.

This is my brother. Not a killer. My brother.

And the silence makes one fact undeniable: He is going to the Morphing Games and he will die.

"Well, if no one wants to volunteer, then I'll keep the ceremony moving."

I can't volunteer. I'm a girl. The best I can do is to volunteer for the girls' side and work to keep my brother alive. But I know what the outcome for that would be; my brother would kill me.

Well, it would be absolution at least.

"I volunteer," a voice soft, but sure comes from the same section as my brother, the sixteens. The crowd in the pen turns to look at the speaker as he gracefully moves his way through the masses and toward the stage.

All the tension in my muscles unravels, leaving me so weak-kneed I have to grip the post marking off the corner of the pen in order to stay upright.

"No," says Rosalie, and her voice is so clear the echoes bound and rebound, until everyone is staring at her-baffled. Her passionate cry doesn't fit the asthetic of proud Victor. Then again, as I look closer at Rosalie, she looks different than she used to more beautiful yes, but dark shadows stretch from under her eyes. Rosalie never was a smiler but now her lips are tight almost puckered.

Tanya turns to her, confused, "Is there something wrong with the candidate?"

As the boy stands there on the stage next to my brother, I realize I saw him earlier tonight. He was the blonde who looked bored.

He gives a winning smile to the crowd. It is clear to them that he is a much better candidate than the nervous, half-blind boy. "There's nothing wrong, Mrs. Denali. My sister's just startled to see her brother up on stage—that's all."

The crowd goes wild. It seems whenever the Hales are involved, people forget about the violence of the games, even with the new variable of the children. They're just too charming, too composed.

"Please," says Tanya, a little upset by the rambunctiousness. This time the crowd doesn't quiet as easily.

Two Prospective from the same family; it's unheard of. But if anyone could make a legacy it would be the Hales. I wonder how their parents feel, losing two children. I hope they cry into their pillows at night like I never could. I hope they sit at the kitchen table I used to sit at and suffer.

Rosalie holds up a hand and crowd settles as if she's a conductor. "The proper dueling procedure must be followed."

"Yes, of course," says Tanya snidely, sending a glare to Rosalie.

"I concede," says my brother, his voice sounding dull in comparison to the musicality of the vampires and Jasper's rough charm.

Tanya gives another forced chuckle. "Lacking the guts of a true Prospective, are we? Well then, hurry along."

My brother doesn't flinch, and thankfully the crowd lets him pass. He's a nobody now, lost in the shadows of the shining glory that is the Hale siblings.

"Your name?" Tanya asks.

"You can call me Jasper Hale," Jasper answers, giving her a wink.

The crowd mumbles, wanting to clap, wanting to shower this boy with their pride. It's only fear of fangs keeps them quiet.

I'm not focused on any of this though. My eyes are trained on my brother, whose back is still straight. It doesn't matter that I'll never get to fight for him, to die for him, to atone for what I did. I would trade any forgiveness I could get for his safety.

"Let's move onto the next name, shall we?" trills Tanya.

My brother is safe. I, however, am not. There is the possibility, however unlikely, that my name will be called, too. Around me all the other twenty-year-olds tense up. Most of us don't want to volunteer by this age; even the rich ones have sweet-hearts, settled lives, jobs lined up after we finish school at the end of this year. I don't think there has ever been a volunteer over eighteen. The young know they're foolish and the old have wisdom, only the adolescents straddle the difference.

"I have another surprise for you," Tanya begins, her tone lighter and almost saccharine. "A special guest."

Something stirs in the shadows. A breeze. A movement.

A vampire.

"My good friend has never been a mentor before, but he's come out of hiding especially for the hundredth anniversary of the games." She smiles over her shoulder, in a way that I'm sure will inspire decades of wet dreams in the boy pens.

"You're too kind, Tanya," says a voice, soft as velvet, cold as steel.

Vampires always sound ethereal but there's something about his voice that rubs against me, not the wrong way, not the right way, but in a way I didn't even know existed. A way that makes me ache in deep places, in my bones.

The voice matches a face so striking, it breaks my heart to look at it.

If Tanya is manicured, and Rosalie feral, then this vampire's appeal is a different kind altogether: a fantastic kind. His skin is alabaster and his hair the color of the dome of the Blood Bank: copper. It grows wild from his scalp. He looks as if he has just woken up from a fever dream—nnnno, as if he is a dream.

"Edward Cullen, the mentor for the female Prospectives of District 2!"

Simultaneously, all the female hands fly together in rapturous applause. I'm proud of myself that I manage to keep from clapping.

Edward frowns and holds up a single finger. "I think many are anxious to see the results." His voice is so low it almost rumbles the rafters.

He picks up the steel box. Even the women grow somber.

I know I'm thinking the same thoughts everyone else. Don't pick me; don't pick me. But there's a difference, unlike everyone else, I'm not afraid of dying—well, okay, a little—but mostly I'm afraid of killing.

I remember my brother's horror as I punched him in the jaw, and in the chest. And in the eye. I'll remember it forever.

Edward has the slip in his hand now. Reading it—his supple, full lips forming syllables—He says it.

It's not me. I never thought there was anything worse than it not being me.

But there is.

"Emily Black." He says her name so sonorously, I almost forget who exactly he's talking about.

She isn't like my brother; she doesn't contain the immediate burst of tears as she stumbles down from her place in the rafters with her family. She wasn't even in the pens. She didn't even think she'd have to worry about it.

"Jacoob," she cries.

Jacob pushes up against the red, velvet rope that sections off the sixteens. And it's not her screams, or tears, or the fact that she is only twelve, and if they put her in the arena she will die, that bothers me. No. It's his face. It's the way you can see his heart break, his innocent, easy heart.

Jacob Black, a man who carries his sister on his shoulders, takes her to his secret place, who calls her Emmy-Bear. He has done nothing wrong. He doesn't deserve to know what it's like to have someone important to you die. Maybe I did, but not him. Someone has to volunteer to stop it.

But who? I won't do it. I don't like the girl. She is just an annoyance to me, an intruder into the only stable relationship I.

"I volunteer," says a shaky voice.

For the second time that night, relief courses though me. Everyone I love is safe. Jacob and I can go hunting with Emily. I realize now I actually like her. Well, maybe _like _is a strong word. But I am surprised by how relieved I am that she's safe.

My feelings of relief are so strong that at first I don't notice the eerie silence that has descended over the crowd. Shouldn't they be clapping for the winner?

I look around for a moment, confused. _Why is everyone looking at me?_

A girl next to me hisses, "Well, go on then."

The crowd hesitantly begins to clap.

_Oh God. _

The volunteer, the person who took Emily's place?

It's me.


	6. 6

Authors Note: Big thanks to Someone Aka Melissa, my especially speedy Beta's this week, and Melissa, my wonderful pre-reader who encouraged more stage time for Charlie than I originally gave him.

[6]

"Say what you will - I am The Kill."

-The Dresden Dolls

Everyone's looking at me, but it's Jacob's eyes that pop out. In them, surprise, fear, rebuke, but above everything else: gratitude. His eyes are the only reason that I don't shout out that I take it back. That I don't scream that I don't want to die. That, I don't want to _kill._

Emily was halfway to the podium when I said my name. Now she stands stock still, glancing back to the rafters desperately.

The walk to reach her is one of the longest of my life. My cheeks burn and whispers trail after me like smoke after fire.

When I reach her, I give her a shaky smile. "Come on," I say, "you just have to go to the stage with me, that's all."

I think Jacob must have lied about her liking me, because she looks at me skeptically. Still, I have to admit she's cute, even with her swollen nose and tear-stained cheeks.

She shakes her head from side to side, no doubt remembering the talk of duels, and when I pushed her down earlier today.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I promise," I say. It's true. I won't be hurting her. I'll be hurting other children instead.

I hold out a shaking hand. She looks at it for a long moment.

"Okay," she whispers, "but I want to go to Jacob right afterwards."

She takes it.

I nod, but I'm not sure how people are taking this. Do me holding her hand make me look like a hero? I almost feel like one; I almost don't have to work to keep my neck elongated and gait rolling.

When we get to the stage, Tanya motions us to stand a few feet apart, but Emily doesn't let go of my hand. I'm afraid Tanya's going to break her fingers in trying to pry her away from me, but then Rosalie whispers harshly, "Just let them hold hands."

But it's not until the alabaster man, Edward, adroitly moves Tanya away from me that she stops. "Please, Tanya, you know how these things can drag." Unlike Tanya, his capitol accent doesn't sound affected, just smooth. Like the tailoring of his midnight suit hugging his lean thighs.

Even now, even facing the possibility of my own death, I can't help the shiver that comes over me at the timbre of Edward's voice. Almost against my own will, I turn to look at him.

I'm surprised to see him looking back at me intensely, not with sophisticated apathy, but with something else. He doesn't smile or move his face; his eyes, as blood-red as every other vampire, just bore into me. It's as if he's trying to strip-mine my soul.

"And who are you?" he whispers, so soft I think only I'm supposed to hear it.

I can't help but feel as if I am his prey. As if he is going to consume me. But the weird part is, I don't want to run—no, my first instinct is to tip back my neck and offer him a sip.

Thankfully, my first instincts always come quick enough to be analyzed, and I'm able to stop myself and turn my frank staring into a glare.

"Edward, just read her thoughts for it," says Tanya, waving a hand.

Read my thoughts? Oh no. All at once, my knees weaken. Now instead of Emily holding onto me out of fear, I'm leaning on her. She can't support all of my weight and looks up at me, wide-eyed.

I know that vampires have powers. We learned about it in school, but never occurred to me that there might one who could read my mind.

His eyes don't move from mine. I'm drowning in them, losing air. What has he heard inside my mind? Does he know how much I hate vamp—

I eliminate the thought as soon as it enters my brain, but it's already too late. The moment he looked inside my head, he must have seen all the treasonous thoughts I have.

Will he report me? Can you disqualify a Prospective? Could he change me to Chattel status? Technically, I'm not even an official Prospective yet. Maybe, he'll just deny my offer to volunteer. If Emily's life wasn't at stake I would—

Another thought I can't afford to finish.

"I'd like to hear her say it." He turns away from me.

Maybe I can run? It's impossible of course; I'm on a stage with thousands of people watching my every move. Where would I even go?

His eyes meet mine again.

"Announce it," his eyes darken to crimson. "Announce your name."

"I-sabella Swan," I stutter.

I think, but I'm not sure, that Jasper Hale smothers a snicker.

Fuck him.

I can't help but glance to Edward. For reasons I don't—no, can't afford to understand—my gaze seems to always get stuck on his face, like burs on cotton. He watches me patiently.

Fuck him too.

The crowd, ripples, outstretched, not stopping this. Not doing anything.

Fuck them all.

For the first time, I meet Edward's steady gaze, unflinchingly. I am not that girl who tried to kill herself in the abandoned building because she felt was guilty. No longer. I will not be ashamed. If I'm going to do this? If I'm going to die, or worse live forever?

Then I'm going to do it right.

He holds my gaze for a moment longer still. If it wasn't totally insane I would say there is something sad about the puckering of his brow.

"We still have to contend with the duel!" says Tanya.

"D-duel?" stutters Emily.

"You concede," Jasper whispers hastily before I can.

He's going to be a threat. I can tell already. But he's the one person I won't feel any guilt about killing, even if he tries to be helpful now. An eye for an eye, a family member for a family member. Right, Rosalie?

"I can read!" Emily yells.

Edward laughs, a dark, low, chuckle that turns my muscles inside out.

This isn't funny. But I laugh too, because if I don't I know I will cry.

"No, darling, you concede," corrects Tanya, hurriedly.

Emily grips my hand even tighter. "I concede," she says. I give her a little nudge and she looks up at me accusingly. "What?"

"You can go back now, Emily. Go back to Jacob."

The smile she gives to me is the one that saved her life. It was the sparkle of teeth and earnestness that dimmed my resentment and paranoia.

She scurries down the steps and flutters through the crowd like a moth flying to light.

And I know.

Whatever the audience thinks, I'm not a hero. I'm not doing this for Emily or even Jacob. I'm doing this for myself. I'm doing this, because as Emily turns around the way she moves reminds me of summer nights outside of our old, big house near the water. Ben and I running in circles under the serenade of the cicadas. Picking weeds and calling them flowers, catching moths and pretending they're lightening bugs.

Watching Emily run to her family is like watching myself, skipping. Soft, wet grass under-foot, laughing at nothing.

It is as if I have reversed time.

As if I've fixed things.

As if I've saved them.

Saved myself.

In my memory, my mother calls us in because it's late. I can almost hear her voice now.

"Three lightening bugs!" She was the one who started the game of calling the moths lightening bugs, stories were Mom's specialty. "I'm so proud of you, Isabella."

"Isabella," she says again, only it's not her speaking.

I whirl, and come face to face with Edward. He's closer than he' ever been before, and for a moment I am enthralled by the riotous forest of hair growing from his scalp. I want to run my fingers through it.

While everything about him is hard, and cold, somehow his eye are gentle. Not earnest, because there is something sardonic about the way his lips turn slightly, but careful.

I'm not a complete idiot, I realize. There is a reason he said my name twice before I turned around. The first time he said it, there was such knowing in his voice, such utter understanding.

He looks at me the way I look at Emily, and says my name the way my mother used to say it.

I want to throw myself into his arms.

Then I remember where I am, who he is.

He is a monster who has just seen my most intimate, possibly treasonous thoughts. But the only courage I can summon comes from ignoring this fact. So I rip my gaze from his, and turn inwards and offer my hand to Jasper Hale.

Up close there is a strange flush to Jasper's cheek and twinkle to his eye. His long, blond hair, flows in waves to his chin and his bright blue eyes almost twinkle at me. How can he be happy now?

We shake hands three times, but instead of breaking apart afterwards, we turn to the crowd and hold our joined hands above our heads. As if we're a team. As if we're not planning to kill each other the moment we enter the arena.

"May I present to you, your two Prospectives: Jasper Hale and Isabella Swan! May they die and become!"

The anthem plays one more time, but I am outside of time, outside of my body, outside of the room. In my mind, I am standing on thousands of nickels, being faced with a child with a bloody dagger aimed at my heart. I am paralyzed.

Hopefully, it will come across as stoicism to the cameras, because now my every move will be watched, evaluated by human racketeers and vampire sponsors.

As Tanya leads us from the front, through the crowd, the cameras' heads swivel 360 degrees, following Jasper and I. Rosalie follows behind Tanya at heel, and Edward follows her, moving silently through the shadows. I glance back at him once, to see if he's looking at me, to see if he really can read my thoughts, but he doesn't look back.

Jasper's smart, he's looking at the crowd waving, not just in general, but picking specific people and making eye contact. I think a girl in the seventeen-pen swoons a little when he blows her a kiss.

All around me, the dissonant screams of the national anthem mix with the shouts of the crowd, all for Jasper of course.

Thank God, I don't have to worry about winning the sponsorship of District 2. If I did, I would be totally fucked.

After we exit the building, we're in official custody. I don't mean in handcuffs or anything, but from now until the Morphing Games, either Tanya, Rosalie or Edward will be present at our side at all times.

They lead us into a small holding room, not unlike the waiting room for the blood letting. It's funny to imagine how nervous I was then at the thought of failing my quota.

What am I nervous about now? Dying? Or perhaps worse, not dying, being turned into a monster for eternity, becoming like Rosalie.

"Who should we gather for goodbyes?" asks Rosalie brusquely, not even looking at me.

I'm sure Jasper will have millions of friends that will take up most of the time so I blurt out, "Jacob, Ben and Charlie."

Tanya raises a thin eyebrow at me. "Last names please."

I'm going to be surrounded by vampires soon, so I'd better practice not being intimidated by them. "Charlie, Benjamin Swan and Jacob Black, that's who I claim for my goodbyes," I say steadily. Maybe I will be able to keep my make-shift mask of strength on until I get to a place where I can break down? Will there ever be a place like that again? Was there ever a place like that?

Rosalie still isn't looking at me. What is she afraid of? Yes, I hate her. I'd do anything to get revenge for what she did to my family. But I can't hurt her now. She may as well be one of the statues in the atrium for how vulnerable she is.

Edward stands next to Tanya, looking lazy and indolent. It makes me furious. This is the last time we'll ever see our families and he looks bored?

"Jasper?" Rosalie asks, and I know the way she looks at her brother, almost afraid.

Oh, of course. She must be worried that I'm going to kill Jasper. It's a good thing I have Edward as my mentor, and not her. No doubt she would sabotage me.

"Nobody, thanks," he says—cavalier.

"What? What about your parents?" I ask.

"Jasper," Rosalie says warningly, "Mother and Father will want to say goodbye to you."

He smiles coolly at her. "It will be easier for them if I don't. I don't think I'll be able to soothe them as usual, dear Sister."

Was it all an act, the kissing, manipulating the crowd? He's as terrified as I am. But then why did he volunteer? No, there has to be another explanation for not wanting to see his parents.

Rosalie grits her teeth, "If you insist."

She disappears, moving at vampire speed.

I can't help but stare at the spot Rosalie just was at, as if she'll simply reappear. And then, to my surprise, she does, not a hair out of place. Beside her are Ben, Jacob, Charlie and two other people I didn't expect—Emily and Prim.

Charlie steps forward first. I hope that he'll say something, but for a long time, he just stares at me, focused on the bow of my shirt.

"Charlie," I begin, "I'm entering the Games just like you wanted." Tears scrape at my eyes, trying to claw their way out—but I won't let them. The moment I exit this room, the metal animal-cameras will be back in full force. Any show of weakness will be televised.

He grunts. Maybe it's my imagination, but I think he shakes his head a little. As if to say no, he never wanted this.

"Charlie." He has to say something. This can't be it. He's the only person left who really knows me and doesn't hate me.

But even he can't look at me.

"Dad," I say softly.

And finally, he looks at me.

But still he says nothing. Instead he outstretches one of his big hands, weathered and dirty from working and never washing.

As I put my hand in his, I am amazed by how little and pale my fingers look against his. Once, and so softly I can barely feel it, he squeezes my hand.

Before I can say thanks, or wait or anything, his hand falls away and he turns away shuffling out of the door with a quick, uneven gait.

For the first time since Mom died, I don't want him to go.

Maybe it's bad, but I don't notice Prim and Ben, holding hands, until they stand in front of me.

"I didn't want to come," says Ben awkwardly, but I feel comforted by his uncertainty. Maybe he doesn't want me dead after all.

"Ben," says Prim softly, reprimanding. I expect her to say something pithy, about dying and becoming or my health being the best sacrifice to the empire, but instead she says, "Jasper Hale."

He's back to charming, as he gives her his full powered smile. "Can I help you, darling?" he asks adopting the Capitol affect.

Prim grips Ben's hand tighter and gives Jasper an open smile in return. Hers is nice too, but not dazzling. "I just wanted to thank you, for volunteering."

"You're very welcome."

Abruptly, she switches her gaze to me. "And you. I know what you did."

The room goes silent.

I am going off to die, and this is my going away present? A reminder of my sins? Ben must have told her about his eye.

"I know," she says. "It's not my place to forgive you, that's Ben's burden, and that's something he has to come to terms with."

Next to her, Ben shifts uneasily.

"But I want you to know. I'm going to look after Ben, and Charlie too." She reaches a hand out to touch Charlie, who surprisingly doesn't move away from her.

"And, for what it's worth, I forgive you."

I let out a startled gasp. Anger, relief and sadness, wash through me. She's not Ben; she can't forgive me. And she's possibly insane too, dating a boy young enough to be her nephew, but her gesture moves me all the same.

"Thank you," I say quietly. It sounds as sincere as I feel it.

She grabs my hands between hers and brings them up to her mouth, kissing them lightly. "One shouldn't hate their sisters. No matter what you've done, you're my sister now."

I clench my fist, the pain of my nails into my flesh distracting me from tears that will flow over my eyes if I don't stem the tide.

I look over towards Ben, but he doesn't meet my gaze. "Ben," I whisper.

"Don't fuck up, Bella." He gives a tight expression that could almost be called a grin.

My heart swells with pride and love. I'm not forgiven. But he doesn't want me dead at least. Then again maybe wishing me dead at this point would be a kindness.

He takes Prim's small hand and they step out of the room, following the lumbering form of Charlie.

Once they're gone, they reveal the well-muscled form of my best and only friend.

"Jacob," I sigh, giving a watery smile as if this is graduation and not the day I'm shipped off to the Capitol to kill or be killed.

He rushes to me so fast I can't stop him, enveloping me in a tight, warm hug. Emily hangs back.

"I told you not to volunteer, and you do it anyway," he says, but he doesn't sound angry at all.

When he releases me from the hug, I can see that he's crying, thick, wet tears. He doesn't try to wipe them away or hide them. I envy the luxury. "One of my sisters would've taken your place."

"One of your sisters almost did," I say wryly.

He rolls his eyes. "No, I mean Leah. She's strong. Not as strong as you, but she could've done alright."

"Maybe," I say. But we both know the truth: in the Morphing Games, doing 'alright' is synonymous with death. There is no second place.

And I know Leah; most of her fighting ability is intimidation. No one would be afraid of her in the arena, at least not until she showed her self worthy at the Proving.

"Jacob, I need to thank you," I say, because I realize I never have thanked him, not for saving my life that day, not for showing me the secret beach, not for giving me friendship when I thought I was unworthy of it. I always kind of assumed he was stupid for all of it.

"Fuck it, Bella, don't say that. Don't make it sound like you're not coming back."

"Pardon," Edward says from the corner.

We both whirl to glare at him. I hate that something in my stomach drops at his frank look of disapproval.

He raises an eyebrow. "You have five minutes left."

Jacob's eyes meet Edward's, and Jacob shrinks a little.

"Fine," I say coldly, not backing down. Or maybe I just can't stop looking at him.

From the corner of my eye, I see his expression shift to surprise. Very few vampires stand up to him, I imagine, and no humans. He has the older look of an original, a vampire made before the change.

One of Jacob's calloused hands comes up to fiddle with the bow on my chest. "This is pretty. I'm glad you look nice."

"Jacob," I warn. "You're not going to distract me with compliments."

"Distract you from what?"

"Thanking you. For everything."

His expression darkens. For a second, I wonder if he's going to call in my debt and ask for another kiss. I'm not sure how I'd feel about this. Instead he says, "So, if you owe me then I can ask a favor, right?"

"In theory," I say hesitantly. Will he ask for something more than a kiss? The idea makes me squirm.

"You've gotta win." There he is. The boy from the beach. The boy with the sister. The boy who believes. In things. In me.

"What?"

"You can do it. You said yourself, this is what you've spent your whole life training for."

I haven't even honestly thought of trying to win. Without realizing it, I guess I just figured that I would lose, if not out of lack of skill, than out of weakness, an inability to kill. And even if I do win. Then what? Then I become like them? A monster? I kill people and as a reward I get to be a parasite forever? I become subsumed into the system that killed my mother.

But I can't say this. They can still hurt the people I love.

"Of course I'll win," I say unconvincingly. To say anything else in front of the vampires would be foolish.

"No. I don't care, Bella, about anyone else, even if they're just . . . kids. You have to come home." His eyes are bereft of tears, and his voice is husky. He's never looked more like a child. He's never hurt anyone, not an innocent. He's asking me to do things he doesn't comprehend.

"Jacob," I begin tenderly, smoothing back his hair. "I'm not coming home. Even if I win. That's just the way it works."

He shakes his head, escaping from my almost mothering touch and glaring. "You can come visit there's no rule against visiting your family and friends. She's here isn't she?" He throws out a hand to point to Rosalie.

"You're right," I say, rubbing my hands over his biceps, trying to calm him, or to be honest, myself.

It doesn't matter. Even though I saved him from losing his sister, he's still going to lose me. And now he's asking me to kill kids just so I can see him one more time. I may have just gouged out one of his eyes for all the damage I've done to him.

Except this time, it's not my fault. I can't control who I fight or how I die. I may have volunteered, but I didn't choose to do this. The fact that he's asking me to kill children, a child that could have been his sister, there's no one else to blame for that except for the vampires.

"Bella," he says weakly, "come back from worry-land. Tell me you'll do it. Tell me."

"I'll tr—"

"No. Tell me you'll do it. Tell me you'll win."

"Enough," I say so sharply Jacob's eyes widen. He takes a step back away from me, as if seeing me for the first time. In some ways he is. I imagine I have the same expression I used to when I was on the sparring mat or mixing poisons.

The fear in his eyes hurts, but I'm not going to kill kids. Not for Jacob, not for anyone. My life isn't worth that.

"I just want you to . . ." he chokes swallowing a sob, looking to me for reassurance that everything is going to be okay.

I shouldn't be mad at him. This is the last time I'm ever going to see him. And he doesn't know how damaging violence is—to everyone.

"Let's not ruin our goodbye, Jacob," I say softly, grabbing his hand before he can turn around.

"One minute," says Edward. And I have to stop myself from turning around just to look at his face again.

Jacob draws back, and for a second, I think he's about to leave. But he only bends down, and whispers something very quickly to Emily, who scampers forward.

"B-bella," she says, her voice still racked with nervousness. She looks towards Tanya, the clock, and clears her throat. "I've got a present for you." She holds out her hand, much like I had held out my hand to her earlier that night.

Something bright and silver flashes up at me: a pin, an expensive one at that. Is that real silver? It can't be? "That's not what you scavenged from the beach today."

"I know," she says brightly. "I traded an old woman for it. She really seemed to want that bottle cap pin from the beach."

Whoever traded a bottle-cap for this pin needs to be hidden in away in the attic or risk being changed to Chattel status on grounds of insanity. The pin is beautiful, an interlocking set of bull horns cast in silver. I bend over closer to get a better look. The silver seems real.

"She said to tell you that Greasy Ol Sae wanted you to have it." Emily gives a giggle. "What kind of a name is Greasy Ol Sae? Do you think she eats too many Fatty blood bars?" It's good to see that Emily is able to recover easily from the fright of the Reaping. She will have nightmares though. I'm sure.

"I'd love to have this as my token," I say gently, as I take the silver pin and fasten it onto my dress.

"Time," says Edward coolly.

"Wait!" Jacob pleads.

This time, it's Tanya who speaks, "The rules are strict on this, we can't dither around here all day. This isn't even the fun part!"

Emily lunges towards Jacob, grabbing the edge of his gray-jumpsuit, afraid of the two beautiful, deadly creatures moving towards us.

"Bella," says Jacob, and I can't help but admire his bravery, defying a vampire. "F-forever," he chokes, "I'll— "

But the vampires must have grabbed him, because before he can finish he just disappears. A few seconds later, Edward, Tanya and Rosalie are back and after a few seconds more, they are leading Jasper and I out of the Blood Bank.

Post Authors Note:

Just a fun little thing, because I enjoy sowing the seeds of discontent. Curretnly has 80 reviews and Twilighted has 78. Whichever site reaches 100 first will get a special EPOV outtake. I know this may seem a little review-pandery, but I'm really only doing this because in my head there is a competition between Twilighted and F. for review count and I think it's fun. Because as evident by this story I have a thing for games. ;)


	7. EPOV OUTTAKE

Authors Note:

So first off! Huuuge thank you for the out-pouring of reviews on the last chapter. Both sites went well over the 100 review finish line. So here is your reward (with disclaimers).

Warning! This may make no sense! The problem with writing EPOV, and why I won't do it often (ever again?) is that he knows WAY more than Bella does at this point. And the engimaticness of his feelings/understanding of what the HELL is going on is a key point for the plot. After the story's finished, I might do more of these, but I doubt before then.

You aren't supposed to understand what's going on, with the plot. All will be revealed as the story goes on. Also I apologize for grammar mistakes. This is un-beta'd and un pre-read.

All in all this is an unofficial part of the story. So read at your own risk. I wrote this for myself to help aide with my own understanding of Edward. But you guys gave me such wonderful reviews and I am loathe to renig on a promise. So here it is.

(I know for f.f readers I said I'd be making it as a separate story, but the lack of word count made it hard for me to justify.)

I know everything about Isabella Swan.

I know every grade she's ever gotten, every sparring partner she's ever beaten, every bone she's ever broken.

I know how she tastes. I've been drinking her blood for a year now. In my pent-house in Volterra there is a vault where I keep every donation she's given. When Esme comes over for our nightly chats, we sip it.

I didn't always drink it with such civility.

The first time I drank Isabella's Swan's blood I was in the outskirts of Chicago, by a gravestone.

_My_ gravestone.

I don't know why I returned there after wandering the earth. It wasn't homesickness. Chicago hadn't been home since I died there among the feverish dying bodies, and unsanitary funeral pyres. If anything Forks was home, but that was long gone too.

I think I was following a flock of birds, for food. I tracked them across the plains, the abandoned farms, the canyons carved by acid rain. There weren't many mountain lions left to hunt, but no matter what I had done I wasn't going to kill a human.

I had too many human deaths to my name. Two-thousand-three-hundred of those in the last hundred years. Yet I hadn't had crimson eyes since the days before Carlisle died.

Needless to say, I had been following birds and squirrels for a while.

It was coincidence that the birds landed in Chicago.

It wasn't coincidence that Esme (dressed still in her poofy 1950s housewife garb, with the sticks in her hair and wild eyes) found me there, nursing the broken-necked goose.

It wasn't coincidence that she brought me into her icy arms, and said chocked with laughter and tears she couldn't shed, "You've got to eat better."

No, that was love.

Something I hadn't felt in a long time.

Something I didn't deserve. Not from her of all people.

As I extricated myself out of her arms, I asked, "Why are you here?"

For an answer she popped open the cork of a vial that held Isabella's blood. "Drink," she said.

With the first sip I was unconscious from pleasure. Vampires aren't supposed to ever lose awareness, but I did. It was easily the highlight of my too-long existence.

Esme knew I would do anything for the blood. Even return to the citadel that held my sins, my demons—Volterra.

But if I would do anything for blood, than I would do _everything _to make up for my mistakes.

Isabella's Swan's blood has other benefits than being unbearably delicious. Benefits that allowed us to begin sowing the seeds of our revolution in earnest. After drinking Bella's blood, my mind became as inscrutable to Aro as hers is to mine.

I would have been content to merely plot for eternity, but then Esme had one of her bouts of womanly intuition, as she calls them. In truth, she is a Seer of the highest caliber, but if Aro believes her a piddling old woman all the better.

No one suspects a widowed housewife of revolution. Not one who makes scrap-books and still decorates the table with seasonal place-settings even when there's no food and the seasons are mutilated by global warming.

One night in August, we sat at a table at my pent-house in Volterra. A hundred years Esme kept it for me, so nothing was touched by decay. Vampire engineering—my engineering—was beyond impeccable, so the twisted, vacant silver tower was still structurally sound.

Our hands looked so pale, clasped there together against the black, polished ebony of the table. The room was silent, only the muted ticking of the grand-father clock.

_Edward_, she thought. _I've had a vision. _She held up the thin-stemmed wine glass filled with Isabella's blood. _About your singer._

"Finally trust my control?" I asked.

Esme had kept the information from me out of fear that if I knew the source of the blood I would seek it out and drain it dry. There was also the matter of each of us having as little information as possible, in case we were ever compromised.

She fiddled with the lacy tea-cozy she always placed underneath her wineglass. Unlike me she respected the sanctity of wood varnish.

And then she showed me the vision.

The vision I am fulfilling now, as I watch Isabella walk towards me, to the stage.

But I know more than the vision.

I know everything.

Thankfully, Aro still sees me as something of a son. He was thrilled with my return, even more thrilled with my newly crimson eyes. So leaving Volterra to come to Chicago to observe Isabella wasn't a problem.

Once there, I was struck by how little had changed since the take-over. The humans were still kept corralled in their playpens of broken streets and graffitied walls.

Much sickens me about what the world has become. But nothing physically repulsed me more than what had been done to my old home. I can't help but remember the days when I patrolled the streets for the scum of the earth, before Carlisle found me. I tried so hard then to protect the innocent.

And now?

Now similar scum rule Chicago. Rule the world.

But not for long.

Not if Isabella follows my plans.

Which she will.

As I said, I know her.

I've followed her, seen her reflection in of every mind that thinks they know her.

I know that her first word was da-da. Or at least that is what her father remembers it as being. This is the image he holds in his head, Isabella's small hand reaching out for his own, as he watches her come up to the stage to sacrifice herself for a girl he thinks she's never even met before. (This is one of his moments of greater clarity. Most of the time he spends counting steps, trying to think of something, anything, except for his dead wife's face. He was worse than useless in my quest to understand my singer.)

I know of every illegal escape she's made from the city-walls to meet with that _boy. _The one who thinks he knows her.

He doesn't, of course.

There is cruelty in Isabella that he will never understand. He is so preoccupied with the curve of her chest, or the few times she smiles, that he doesn't think to ask himself why she really tried to kill herself. In truth, he doesn't want to know.

But his ignorance is to be expected. He's young, strapping and gay. Back when there were boy scouts he likely would have been one. He wears his badge of ignorance proudly, anyway.

But for all his naïveté, he knows things I don't. He's felt the friction of her hand sliding into his, the brush of finger-tip on finger-tip. He knows how her lips pull over her teeth when she smiles. Whether or not she has dimples. He's heard the melodic line of her laugh.

My dirty little secret will always be that I almost everything I've seen or heard about Isabella Swan, I've heard through the boy.

I doubt she will ever laugh with me.

I shouldn't want to.

Her smile is irrelevant.

But even though I have seen the sea swallow the shore in waves as tall as mountains, peered into the cracks of the earth and seen the magma core festering below, as the volcanoes spewed ash and fire into the sky, the fact that I haven't seen her smile makes me feel as if I haven't seen anything at all.

As I watch her on the stage, looking so painfully terrified, and yet so brave, I can't help but yearn to see her smile through my own eyes and not the boy's.

When she turns to look at me, I am surprised with my own composure. I shouldn't be. I've had centuries of practice with it. Living on the outskirts of reality, in ignorance about the exact nature of my own sins.

She is nothing but a means to an end.

I don't feel bad thinking of her as such. We all must make sacrifices to the greater good. And I have miles to go before I will have given enough to make up for what I did.

But I have knowledge now. I have lots of things I thought I had lost forever.

A plan being perhaps the most notable.

But with the girl standing in front of me, grasping the hand of the even littler girl, Emily was it, (in the end she's irrelevant), I have something else, too.

Hope.

Of course being the sexy, awful bastard that I am—Tanya's words on my return and subsequent refusal of her advances—I want more.

Not just her blood. Although as I step closer to her I have a hard time reigning in my fantasies of her broken neck, blood decanted by my teeth. I have never been this close to her before. All my spying took place from a palatable distance.

I want her thoughts.

But fate has a black sense of humor, or at least irony. Because just as I can't have her blood; I can't have those either.

I know her through the eyes of others. I've assembled scraps of memories, mosaics of lies, truths and shades between them.

But I've never been introduced to her. I've never met her really.

"Announce it," I say.

I am deluded if I think just hearing her name will sate the hunger in me, but it's a start. What I really need her to say is _my_ name, but that can wait.

"Announce your name."

She looks up at me with anger and fear.

I want—

No.

But her name. I can have that for now. What harm is there in a name?

I have read her files so many times, seen the construction of syllables an etymology. Swan, a bird long extinct. Bella, a diminutive of Isabella, but also the adjective in Italian meaning, beautiful. O che bella giornata. What a beautiful day.

Her lips purse, forming the words.

She says it.

"I'm I-Isabella Swan."

And I know immediately I was wrong.

There is great harm in a name.

From the side I hear the other boy, Rosalie's brother, snicker. His thoughts are bloody dreams of glory that I prefer not to indulge in, despite his charming smile. I wonder if Isabella knows that her most daunting opponent stands beside her.

My penchant for stories and myths has cost me greatly, but even now I compare Jasper to the pied piper. His charisma is his pipe.

Sometimes, I wish I didn't have to see all of Esme's visions.

"I am Isabella Swan and I volunteer for the 100th Morphing Games," the force of her yell jars my sensitive hearing. But somehow I am grateful even for that. I like her scream, I realize. Perhaps like is the wrong word, it is more that her scream is so much _of _her. She is so vivid, when she yells. The color of her soul brightens and flickers in front of me.

And then of course. I know.

Little, foolish girl, what have you done?

Feelings that I can't afford to have, creep into my chest.

She can't stop looking at me either. Like a child seeing the sky for the first time, she is all coltish wonder and girlish innocence.

It does things to a man to be stared at like that.

But I am not a man.

I am a monster.

And Isabella Swan will pay the price for it.

I'll be taking her to the river of bones, and encouraging her to journey to Hell without lyre or bargain. But, in the end I will not be able to force her to abide by my plan. I can already tell this will be hard. She brings out force and violence in me.

If I look deeper I would hazard to say that around her I feel almost afraid. Esme would say I am afraid of losing her. Perhaps in part. But I think mostly I am afraid of how she makes me feel.

Once the ceremony is over and the goodbyes begin, I move to the shadows. I have lost focus, here, being so close to her. Analyzing my reaction to the girl, I wonder if perhaps other parts of Esme's vision were accurate as well.

But no, I realize as she asks for her family and the boy, Isabella cannot be anything to me but a tool, something to be wielded in the coming battle.

With this thought, it is surprisingly easy to watch Isabella in pain.

I had thought it would be harder to watch a young girl being forced to say goodbye to her loved ones.

But then again, only one of them actually loves her.

Not her father, who is gone, continually lost in memory. Even as he holds out his hand for her to squeeze he isn't seeing her face, but her mother's. Isabella doesn't know it, but that was the dress her mother wore the day Charlie proposed.

Certainly not her brother. He hates her. Not just because she blinded him, although that's his excuse. In truth, it's because he just wanted a friend after their mother died. And she didn't want to be his friend. She didn't know how.

He remembers that vividly. He wishes he could say goodbye, could forgive her, but he can't, even now. Because he's sure that his sister will never love him. (you don't blind someone you love, is his mantra.) And if he can't have her love, then he'll take her guilt.

But he'll always hate that he's sure she doesn't love him.

And nothing hurts worse when she tries to pretend that she does.

The blond woman, Prim, might love Isabella. She is a mind full of light and goodness like I haven't felt since Carlisle.

The boy loves her though. For certain. He's never told her, but he does.

I don't like the boy.

The thought that her pain mirrors his makes it much easier to withstand.

As he wraps her in his arms, I realize I hate him. It's odd. I have been so consumed with hate for ideas, first for the newborns, then the Volturi, it's a strange feeling to have my loathing be so _focused_.

No matter.

She will be free of him soon enough.

In exactly- "One minute," I say.

He glares at me and I offer him a fraction of my own feeling in return.

I am pleased when he backs down. This is as it should be. He may have bits of Isabella I will never get, but I know Isabella's sins.

I know why her brother glares at her. I know why his eye is clouded.

I know she did it.

I understand her cruelty. Because the same thing resides in my still-heart. (I have no soul to house such things as a personality.)

Unlike the boy scout, she doesn't back-down when I stare at her.

My eyes narrow. Careful little one. Stare to long at the abyss and it will stare back. Bravery or no.

Her defiance makes her beautiful, even though the dress she wears is far too small and her nose more than slightly crooked. (A fight with a schoolmate in year five.)

But for a moment as she stares at me, it is not at all coltish.

It says, "Test me. Forge me anew."

If the little woman-child knew what her eyes asked then I would oblige.

But she doesn't.

I probably will test her anyway. Her brand of defiance and fear makes my blood sing.

It makes me want to play beautiful, terrible games with her, against her.

Play them and win.

I am a monster after all.

But when the little chubby girl gives her the pin, I remember.

Isabella is a spoke in the wheel.

(I don't call her Bella, it would make her even more bound to me.)

She belongs not to me, but to the revolution.

I can never have her.

And maybe this is why I hate the boy.

Because he could have had her.

In some ways-

(As I tear him away from her all he thinks about is the kiss they shared on the beach, replayed in lurid and embellished detail)

-he did.


	8. 7

Authors Note: Wow what a lovely response. This chapter is much less exciting than the last; we need a breather before the next chapter. All that review get teasers. And be sure to check the blog for more pics of the Zepplin. Super thanks to PTB and my pre-reader, Emily, and beta Someone Aka Me.

[7]

Outside, the air is still coated with the stale mist of yesterday. We've managed to miss most of the crowds by ducking out the poor man's entrance, but at least two hundred people clamor toward us through the fog.

After the people follow the cameras, hovering in the air, their large lens-faces trained squarely on Jasper and me.

Muffled by the moisture, girls, raggedy and rich alike, scream, "Hale dynasty! Hale dynasty! Hail to the Hales!"

I look straight ahead, but from the corner of my eye I can see Jasper smiling, stopping occasionally to shake hands. Startlingly enough, people seem to ignore his sister, the one who actually won. Maybe it's because she's distant from them, unreadable.

How does he have the energy, the will? I'm trying my best not to just . . . stop. The only the way to keep up my energy is to distance myself from the ever growing mob, but he seems to thrive on the crowd. He will have no problem winning sponsors.

Yet, I'm not totally alone.

Once, I think I hear a voice suspiciously like Greasy Ol Sae's yell, "Now you have a reason to break someone's arm."

A chorus starts from somewhere. "Swan! Swan!" Jacob, Leah, even Emily on Jacob's shoulders, all pump their fists. I swallow my disappointment at the fact that I don't see Charlie or Ben anywhere.

Finally, we push out to a door in the marble wall. I remember when I was little, thinking it was some kind of tomb. As I got older, I was sure it was just a glamorized supply closet. In truth, it leads to a small tunnel. I expect it to be like the sewers, but it's clean, made of marble. We walk for a minute and then come across a square platform hanging over a metal track.

A soft whirring sound comes from the dot of light in the distance, where the tunnel ends. As we are encouraged up the stairs by Tanya, the sound gets louder. By the time we are all standing on the platform, a metal sphere, large enough to fit four people, has arrived. I cock my head, looking at it. I don't see any bolts or lines where the steel is joined together.

Tanya smirks at our questioning looks. "Vampire technology. We usually don't let you humans see the real goods. Your brains wouldn't be able to comprehend it. " She looks less stunning up close than from far away. I can almost see a wrinkle on her forehead. The transformation is supposed to eliminate all but the most severe signs of aging. She must have been turned when she was very old.

"Tanya, I believe this is where we part ways," Edward says.

She moves to him, pouting, and tugs on the shiny sleeve of his black suit. It's an odd contrast; her made up face and the childishness of the motion. "Darling, I could always join you in the Zeppelin. Just like old times."

He removes her hands and kisses her lightly on the cheek, so quick I almost don't see it. "I think you have other Districts to see to."

"I only have District 12 left. Everyone knows their story anyways; two sad, emaciated humans going off to die. Boo hoo." She looks up at Edward for approval.

I have to force myself not to spit in Tanya's crimson eyes. We are people. She can't just joke about us dying. Except, I can't stop her, so I guess she can.

"We all must make sacrifices," Edward says coldly, his eyes flitting towards mine.

He knows about my thoughts. And he's going to do what? Sacrifice me? Kill me? But his gaze doesn't seem angry as they catch mine. So maybe he's going to hurt me for my thoughts.

Her eyes narrow. "Well, ta-ta for now then," Tanya says, before giving a jaunty little wave and disappearing.

With an economical gesture of the hand, Edward commands the three of us towards the sphere.

Edward and I get in on one side and Jasper and Rosalie on the other. Immediately after we enter, the carriage lurches into motion. As I'm thrown back from the lurch, I can't help but meet Rosalie's eyes across from me. I know that she's powerful now, that she could destroy me with just a thought, but I don't care. I scowl at her for all I'm worth.

"What?" she says, as if she actually has no clue why I'm staring at her. Although she glares right back despite her confusion. This isn't surprising. Glaring was always Rosalie Hale's default expression.

Maybe she's forgotten. Maybe she doesn't remember what she did to me, who I am. The process of being a vampire dulls human memories, all but the most important.

I'd think informing on your best friend's mother would be an important memory, but it's possible I'm wrong. It's possible that Rosalie Hale doesn't remember how she ruined my life.

I invited her to my mother's birthday party, because she was my best friend. For all the beatings she gave me (and I beat her up a few times just as good), she wasn't a bad friend. She terrorized anyone who teased me about my inability to shoot a bow, and when Garrett, an eleventh year I had a crush on, ended up going out with Kate, Rosalie told everyone that he had gotten a 2 on his last sparring quiz.

After she came to the party and heard my mother sing the song about flowers, she told someone. Maybe her parents, maybe a teacher, maybe she wrote a letter to the President himself, I don't know.

I know it was her, because she didn't speak to me all day in training-school, and when I got to my house after staying late for afterschool, everything was wrong.

Everything I owned, not the expensive stuff, but the important things: photos, recipes, clothes, the jar we used to keep the moths we caught in summer, the preserves of jams, lay strewn across the yard. There caught on the branches of the little tree out in front dangled the dress my mother had worn only yesterday.

Our other things were hidden in the grass, toy trucks, chipped coffee-mugs, pictures, picture-books with the pages torn out fluttering lamely the clipped-wings of a dying bird.

"What are you doing here?" said someone behind me.

I whirled to see Rosalie. She looked as confused as I felt, but instead of staring at the wreckage outside of my house, she was staring at me. Like I was the anomaly.

"You shouldn't be here," she said, cold as if she was talking to a first year that had tried to get too friendly.

"Rose?" Her nickname sounded wrong the moment I said it. Even though everything was a mess she looked almost sterile standing there. Sterile and formal.

"You should be at your home," she mumbled.

Rosalie never mumbled. Her whole strategy was beauty and charisma.

The world was upside down.

"This is my home." I said, my voice rising in confusion and anger.

"Not anymore," she said bitterly.

Coldness seeped into me. "What?"

She just stood there, silent and beautiful. Like it was just part of her strategy—to seem invulnerable.

"Why is all my stuff on the lawn?" I repeated, louder.

A light breeze picked up, stealing between the strands of her shiny, straight, blond hair, animating it.

"Rose! Seriously, this is a shitty joke, even for you."

She tried to step away from me, but I couldn't just let her go. She knew something about why everything was so wrong, and she wasn't telling me. She was supposed to be my friend.

Using my back foot, I propelled myself forward. She hit the ground with a thud and I followed soon after, but she shouldn't have gone down so easy.

She let me push her back into the dirt, not moving to break my hold. "If this your house, why isn't your father stopping us?"

"Rose, what's your pro—"

Finally she turned to look at me again, but her gaze wasn't just cold, it was glacial. "Why isn't your mother here?"

"I don't know!" I yelled. I was just about thrust my fist into the side of her jaw with all my might, because I didn't know what else to do, when I heard the thump of heavy boots.

Peacekeeper boots. I turned around, expecting my father, my strong, stoic father. He wouldn't tolerate people doing things like this to his family, his house.

But when I turned, it wasn't just father's face that greeted me, just an anonymous Peacekeeper. And there, behind him, was my brother.

Ben didn't even look worried. He always looked awkward and frightened before my mom died, but that day his back was straight and his gaze flinty and strong. Holding his hand, looking so lost, like a child, like an animal, was my father, the strongest man I ever knew— broken.

"Charles, Benjamin, and Isabella Swan, you are hereby relocated to grey-level," said the Peacekeeper.

"What?" I asked, choked.

Rosalie looked away. I don't know if she was ashamed or just couldn't see my face as I looked at my brother.

In his hand, my brother held up the letter.

Embossed on it was a blood red-seal and the words, in flowing red, script, "The Empire appreciates your contribution."

Rosalie was the reason my mother was dead.

Abruptly, the pod is filled with the pink light of breaking dawn. The tunnel has ended. I hadn't noticed in the darkness, but the hull of the pod is semi-transparent, a cross between steel and glass.

I press my cheeks to the cold wall-window and look at outside. It's a blur, but I'm able to see things that are far enough away, like the craggy shoreline and the tall tree surrounded by gravestones, crowding like children around a teacher eager to hear a story. The fog is gone now, migrated somewhere else; soon I will have too.

The countryside morphs from the half-wild ruins of suburbia to long stretches of deserted fields. Then even those are swallowed up by rag-tag bands of trees.

All the Morphing Game Prospectives go the capitol, Volterra, for the opening ceremony, but I don't know how far away it is. Rumor has that it's located on the East Coast, in the North near a waterfall so tall and fierce that if you tried to swim underneath it, you'd drown. The oceans swallowed up most of the eastern seaboard, so Volterra is now a coastal town too.

Gradually, so gradually that at first it's almost imperceptible, the pod begins to slow, until it stops right on the edge of a field of rust-colored stalks of wheat. But as I exit the pod, I don't notice the way the trees here are so much brighter than the dying ones near the lake, or how bitingly fresh the air is.

All I can focus on is the thing resting on the grain.

It looks a lot like the pod, but much, much larger, and warped slightly, like the back a spoon, taking in light, color and distorting it.

If Ben were here his jaw would drop. He loved big, moving things when he was little.

"I've heard it said that traveling in it is like riding in the clouds," Edward breathes against my ear.

I jump a little, bumping into his chest, and I can swear he rumbles with inaudible mirth before I step away from him.

"Others say it's like dissolving into the ether. Some consider it a spiritual experience."

I root my feet into the ground. If I turn around I'll know exactly how close he is, and I can't know that. Just the possibility that he is as close as he is, is doing frightening things to my stomach.

I briefly contemplate running off into the field. But there's no cover to hide in, and even if was he would have no problem catching me. My face would be reflected in the surface of the zeppelin—it catches every scrap of light.

"And what do you think?" I ask I can almost feel him, even though he's not touching me. Just a few more millimeters and I will be able feel his muscles explicitly.

He waits so long to speak that finally I pivot, expecting to see him right behind me. Instead he's leaning indolently against the bottom of the balloon, gazing at his reflection with mocking curiosity. "I think that four black horses and a chariot would be more appropriate."

I shake my head. "I don't understand."

He's not making any sense, and he has to know that he's not. He's playing with his food. I can't help but turn towards the grain-edged horizon and step toward it. But before I can take another step, he is standing right in front of me.

"Sorry, Persephone," he says soft as the wind brushing against the top of the stalks. "No running away.

I move to the side, but he grabs my wrist, not hard, but tightly enough I know I won't be able to get out. The tips of his fingernails graze the inside of my wrists right over the branching tributaries of my veins.

My heart beats so loudly I can hear it.

Immediately, he drops my hand and stills, like he's been flushed out of hiding. Yet I am the one being hunted.

Then as if he hadn't just started, he gestures upward to the sky. "Unfortunately, black horses or not, we have places to be, and the Cloud Gate waits for no man or beast."

It's almost like he's speaking another language, a beautiful one, but one I don't understand all the same.

I tip my head back, my hair falling slightly out of the twist, tickling the back of my neck, as I see my own face, contorted and enlarged in the mirror-balloon. "Cloud Gate?"

He smiles, eyes slightly hooded. "It's the name of the zeppelin. Do try to keep up, Isa-"

"My name's not Persephone or Isabella. It's Bella." It's a long shot, but maybe if he sees me as a person and not just as a name from a slip of paper, he'll decide not to kill me for my thoughts.

"Come, Isabella," is all he says in reply.

So much for my strategy.

Despite the command he doesn't move, his hand remains immobile saluting the giant zeppelin.

Then I see why.

In response to his motion, unfolding from the belly of the balloon and down to the ground is a long arm of stairs. It contorts and unfurls, each tread popping out like a finger out of a fist.

Before it is even down to the ground, Edward jumps onto it, and once the jump is manageable, I follow. The ladder shakes slightly as we walk up it, and I realize that it's lifting up off of the ground.

Finally, the name makes sense because of the movement and reflection the upper edge of it seems to be made of sky and the lower half earth. It really is a gate to the clouds.

Edward closes the hatch behind me, and I'm left looking at a long hallway. "Take off your shoes," he commands, a blur as he slips out of his brown loaders

I bend down to try and try to untie my laces, but by fingers are trembling too much to pick open the knot. Is he going to kill me now?

I look up to Edward whose expression is unreadable as ever. He leans forward, and I flinch. Now. He's going to do it now. Break my neck. It would be so easy.

But the blow never comes. Instead, he bends over, and in seconds my shoes are off. I shiver at the feeling of his cold hands through my threadbare socks.

"I did ask you to keep up, didn't I?" is all he says for explanation before setting off at a brisk walk.

I have to jog to keep up as we make a few turns along the long corridor. As I run, I discover why he wanted me to take off my shoes. The floor bends. There's no other way to describe it. It doesn't bend much with each step, not enough to be alarming, but ever so slightly.

"Is this some kind of glass balloon?" I joke. I have to joke; the only other option is fainting from the fear that at any moment Edward is going to rip me apart for my treasonous thoughts.

But now in such a tight space, the truth of my situation becomes clear. I am trapped.

Edward makes a sound that must be a laugh, but it seems more like a cough. Humor never was my strong suit, but I seem to amuse him a little at least. Maybe he won't rip me limb from limb.

"A glass balloon," he says. "If Marcus heard you call his precious Cloud Gate a balloon."

Before I can reply, he points to a door. "Look."

I can't help but stare at his hands pointing; they are large but his fingers are still tapered and long.

I look at him blankly. The door isn't opening.

He could have killed me in the field, but maybe he wanted to wait until I had let down my guard. Didn't want a scream to disturb the other Prospective.

But I can't take it anymore, the waiting.

"Just get it over with." I blurt out.

His eyes narrow, "Get what over with?"

He was going to make me say it out loud? Fine. "Just kill me."

He chuckles that same low laughter that makes me prickle in a way I've never felt before.

He leans over slightly, so that we are eye to eye. "Why would I kill you, Isabella?"

It's hard to think when he says my name like that. "B-because you heard my thoughts."

"Did I?" He moves closer until his cold breath tickles the tip of my nose.

I square my jaw. I will not die afraid. "Tanya said that you could read thoughts."

He smiles and I can see every tooth, even the fangs. "I can."

"So?" I will not close my eyes. I will look my killer in the face, make him realize what he's killing is alive, is a person.

"Silly girl, I'm not going to kill you." He admonishes, and to my great surprise brings out a finger to touch my face. Stroking it. Something in me clenches. "Even if I could read your thoughts, I wouldn't care whatever heretical thoughts you have."

"Y-you don't?" It is so unfair. My mom died for one little song. And Edward must have heard my every explicit hatred of vampires, and he's going to do nothing. Why do I deserve this? I almost feel disappointed.

His hand is at the underside of my chin now, and goose bumps have emerged from my skin like buds from the dirt.

"Not an iota," he says so fiercely, the words seem like they'll combust.

His hand leaves my face. Involuntarily, I lean forward.

His eyes darken, but he raises a hand over his head and snaps his finger, behind him the door opens.

Watching his fingers press together like that, so fast and hard, makes me blush. "Is that your power too?" I ask, and it comes out oddly breathless.

Edward chuckles, raising an eyebrow. "No, the door is just the magic of vampire engineering and electronics."

I move away from him cautiously, still not sure that he isn't going to come from behind me and snap my neck.

"I'm not quite finished with you yet, Isabella." All mirth is gone from his voice.

I stop suddenly, all of the hairs on the back of my neck raising. "Yes?"

His expression turns sharp and serious "Dinner's at eight. Do not be late; you and I have things to discuss. You may do whatever you please until then. There are clothes in the closet, and breakfast on the bed. The reaping should be on the vid-screen. I strongly encourage you to watch your competition."

'Thanks," I say, the thought of food pushing away my fear of Edward. Will it be real food and not the blood flavor bars? Maybe it will be hot and steaming. Saliva floods my mouth at the thought, and I find myself scrambling through the doorway.

Once through, I turn around and give a slow clap, not sure exactly how this will close it, but the door swings shut in spite of my hesitation. This seems silly to me. If you can move at super-speed, with super strength, how are you too lazy to open a door?

The room in front of me isn't grandiose like the Blood Bank, but looks rich in a different way. Every surface, except for the bed, desk, and a few chests of drawers, is made of a smooth malleable material; the same material making up the mirror-balloon, as I've dubbed it, and the floor. The ceiling appears to be slightly convex, as if it's a canopy. On the right wall is a small screen, and as Tanya said, it's playing re-runs of the Reapings. I'll need to watch that soon to understand my competition.

But first I am drawn to the plate of food lying on a tray on my bed. There's a tall glass of some pink liquid I've never seen before, as well as plate of toast and waffles. The toast is coated with a thin white and yellow film of eggs. Circling the perimeter of the plate are lines of strawberry's cut into quarters. The artfulness of the display lasts approximately two seconds before it is in my mouth.

As I scarf down the food, I watch the Reapings. What I see causes me to slow my pace of consumption, and eventually push the plate aside all together. For all the luxury, I had almost forgotten the price I had paid, what was to come. The recaps of the Reapings remind me.

The first Reaping looks almost festive. District 1, the richest of all the districts, produces luxury goods. The women are wearing dresses that look more like cupcakes and columns than clothing, and then men are in suits.

Unsurprisingly, the Prospectives are two volunteers.

Aston Martin and Volvina Doubleyuu look every inch the perfect perspectives from their blank faces, beady eyes to their midnight skin and matching silver dreadlocks.

But the tone of the other Reapings is very different.

For one, in not one other district does anyone volunteer.

Except for in District 10.

Unlike District 1, the Reaping Room of District 10 is not theatrical, but over-illuminated by fluorescent lights, with only a makeshift stage below which the crowd stands.

I pause the video and peer closer to check something.

Oddly enough, there doesn't appear to be families or any other smaller groups, just row upon row of shaved head and empty eyes, like soldiers. Even odder, the moment the liaison gets on stage, the same vampire from District 1 who looks much less at home in the moldy basement than on the mahogany stage, the crowd explodes into sound.

It's hard to tell the boy apart from the girl, let alone the girls apart from each other. But eventually two scramble out of the crowd and onto the stage. But unlike the volunteers of District 1, they don't seem in any way physically fit or possessing any skills that could lead them to victory.

This happens every year; the District 10's are always the most eager to participate and they are usually the first to die. I've never understood, and even high definition doesn't clarify this mystery.

Only a few other contestants stick out to me. From District 3, in what looks to have been a school auditorium, a small girl with dark hair and darker eyes who seems to be on the stage before they've even called her name, even though when I rewind I see she was in the twenties pen, the one farthest away from the stage.

A sly, slender girl with a mane of bright curly red hair from District 7, takes her place in the out-door amphitheater bordered by tall winter-trees.

Most hauntingly, is a girl from District 6, who were it not for the pale skin and bronze-curls, looks exactly like Emily, with her big brown eyes. She's a child. Unlike Emily, though, she doesn't cry as she walks up to the platform, and also unlike Emily, when she stands on stage there is no desperate voice volunteering for her.

The racketeers would have put her odds as being abysmal in any other year, but this year she's not the only child.

From District 3 is a small boy with black hair and almond eyes who doesn't ever meet the camera head on, and from District 8, a girl obviously too tall for her body, lanky with early adolescence. Most surprisingly, a pair of twelve-year-old twins is called from District 11.

This shouldn't be my competition. There should be large eighteen-year olds, the kind who know how to use axes and blowguns. Looking at the pictures of the small, frightened children that come on stage, I can't help but feel that this is going to be impossible. How can I watch these children die? How can I kill them?

After I finish watching the Reapings, I draw the covers over my head, much like I had earlier yesterday morning. Was it really only a morning ago? As I drift off to sleep, I can't help but remember the face of the girl with the bronze curls. She is so pale, so delicate looking. I won't be surprised if she is the first to go.

In my dreams I cradle her to my breast and whisper in her ear, "I'll love you forever."

She turns her face, curls bouncing, cheeks dimpled with a smile. "Mommy, tell me again."

But this time I don't say anything. I just raise my hand, and claw out her eyes.

She doesn't even cry as the blood runs down her cheeks.

I wake up screaming, clutching at sheets.

And I know the answer to how I'm going to watch them die.

I'm not.

I know what I have to do.

I don't know how I'm going to do it, or if it's even possible. But I know I have to do it, even if it means my own death.

I'm not going to watch the children die. I'm certainly not going to kill them.

No.

I'm going to save them.


	9. 8

**Authors Note: **

**Super big thanks to PTB , in particular Mella and Someone AKA me. Also yay! Emily my wonderful pre-reader. Unfortunately (or rather fortunately) I'm submitting a one-shot to the Twilight Post Secret Contest (which one I wrote will be appropriately a secret), so the next chapter probably won't come for another two weeks. :( **

**Anyway I'm pretty confident you guys won't be able to guess which one is mine. It's very different from my usual style.**

**Sorry.**

**Thank God I have this baby pre-written though guys, because I just got my first paying gig singing opera! I am officially now a professional singer, but this means I have to learn three arias, a duet and a shit ton of recit in erm.**

**A month!**

**Eeep!**

**Let me repeat**

**Thank god I have about five more chapters already written! And know exactly where this puppy is going.**

**(nowhere happy I promise. ) **

**Anyway, without further ado!**

[8]

Pinpricks of black swim in front my eyes, so close that if I try to focus on them my head hurts. It's not until my vision un-blurs that I realize exactly what has woken me up.

Light and color. All the walls are back-lit, and what I thought was a dark-silver color, actually turns out to be made of fierce oranges and pale yellows. As I slip out of the bed, still clothed in the now rumpled beyond repair polka-dot dress, I realize that it's not the walls that have changed color; it's the sky. The walls are transparent.

The lights must be coming from the sky. We are inside the sunset, a boat riding on air, swimming through pure color. Blurry shadows drift lazily across the walls— clouds.

It takes my breath away, but not for long, I can't afford to be distracted by beauty here. The thought of beauty drags my eye to the dresser. I've never been one for nice clothes, mostly because in training school, ability was more important than appearance.

More important, but not useless. Last year, Rosalie won most of her sponsors because of her beauty. In training school we were taught to have a strategy and I was never pretty enough to use beauty as mine. I leave the room naked. I wonder what Edward would think if I did. The thought brings a blush to my cheeks and I don't know why.

He's a monster. Why should I care what he thinks about my body? But then again, am I really any less of a monster than him?

I fold the blue dress away underneath the bed carefully, worried that while I'm gone someone will take it. Then I filter through a litany of gaudy dresses and some seriously scandalous lingerie before settling on training clothes.

Just as I finish pulling on the black pants and tank top, the door opens.

"Edward?" I ask, trying to keep my voice from shaking. Usually, I wouldn't be modest. For our sixth-year training exercise they left us in the woods nakedm and we had to find our way out, but somehow the idea of Edward seeing me naked makes my heart beat almost as fast as when I worry about the Morphing Games.

But it's not Edward or Jasper or even Rosalie.

"Surprise!" chirps a very feminine voice. "C'est moi!"

"Tanya?" I ask.

Every part of me tenses up, ready to fight, but it's pointless. Even as I watch her stomach muscles— she's changed into a sparkling cut-off top with shorts the size of some of the lingerie in my closet—I know that I won't be able to win. She could kill me before I'd even register it.

"Ugh, you look like you're ready to beat me up." She pouts.

I relax my posture. "What are you doing here?"

She gives me a look as if I am a class A idiot. "I'm here to bring you for dinner, Jasper is up on the viewing deck eating. Come on." She looks me up and down and gives a put upon sigh. "Unlike you, he took advantage of his wardrobe. Nice black suit, red tie." She begins to walk down the corridor clapping her hands above her head, closing the door as I scurry out of it. "He's cute, don't you think?"

"He's my competitor."

Her fangs glimmer as she smiles. "All the better."

I jog to catch up to her. "I thought you were going to visit District 12?"

"Nosy aren't you, little human."

I successfully fight the desire to punch her in the face, knowing if I did I'd probably only get a broken hand out of it—or worse

"Where's Edward, he said I was supposed to meet with him." His instructions had been explicit, and although he had decided not to kill me, it would be prudent not to push my luck.

Tanya sighs even louder, tossing her head of blonde curls. "Probably in his room, reading or composing. I'm sure he's forgotten all about wanting to meet with you. He has a tendency to disappear for long periods of time. You know how men are."

I don't, though. Jacob was always the talkative one, and I don't know if he is a man, let alone my man. Tanya certainly seems to think Edward is hers though, but it had been him that had reminded her to leave to go to District 12, and he had only kissed her on the cheek.

We turn the corner, my feet hitting the ground just after her heels. "Does Edward know you're here?"

"Oh, no. I'm giving him a good, old-fashioned surprise." She winks.

I have a feeling that Edward isn't the kind of vampire who likes surprises, but it could be I'm just projecting. In my ninth year, I was so involved in figuring out different combinations of tinctures and powders for timed explosives that I came home late almost every day. One day when I came home the house was dark, and even after I called out for my parents or Ben, no one answered. We were being burglarized—I was sure of it. When the lights flicked and a crowd yelled surprise, with Rosalie standing next to the cake smirking and all my family gathered, my first thought was to dive towards the cake searching for a bomb. I tore off the top of the cake and dug through the interior, but came up only with handfuls of frosting.

"So it's just me, you, Jasper and Rosalie then?"

"Rosalie is also hiding out in her room. You'd think she'd at least want to talk to her brother, but I guess her bitchiness applies even to family members." Tanya leans towards me and says in a stage-whisper, "I think she's bitter because she's ugly, frankly."

I restrain myself from rolling my eyes. If anything, it's the other way around, but I file away Tanya's jealousy of Rosalie. Maybe I can use it later.

In front of me a door opens and soft rays of pink and orange, more muted than before, pour through.

I step through the threshold and into the observation deck, a room constructed entirely of glass. What had been colorful shadows are made clear by the transparent walls. Wisps of clouds, like bolts of moth-bitten silk, dance and turn in the sea of warm light. The only thing more beautiful than the sky is the reflection of it in the exterior of the balloon. I hadn't noticed it before. The balloon isn't perfectly oblong, but arcs upward from the bottom, almost like a bean. All the reflections of clouds are twisted and distorted. If that weren't enough, the Zepplin is also glowing oddly, the distortion of the glass sending strange loops of light out into the ether.

We must have walked upward through the balloon, because I can see down the side of it in every direction. This must also be another miracle of vampire engineering, because I hadn't felt any incline on the way up.

Tethered to a pole outiside is what looks like a motorcycle. That must be how Tanya reached us mid-flight.

In the middle of the room, or rather, deck, is a long table, set with every kind of food imaginable. Real food, not blood bars. At the end of the table sits Jasper, his hair tied up, exposing every plane of his face. He's handsome, but the real grandeur is outside and no lavish table settings will convince me otherwise.

"Jasper, darling, Bella and I shall join you for dinner, yes?" asks Tanya, her voice taking a more sophisticated Volterran accent than it had with me. I have to stifle a smirk. A-thousand-year-old vampire, trying to impress a sixteen-year-old boy? Ridiculous.

Jasper gives an easy smile. "Plenty here for everyone, darling." His eyes catch mine. I'm surprised by how cold they are. I feel caught on it like a tongue on an ice-cube.

He rips his gaze from me and toward Tanya. "I didn't fancy you for the salad type."

She licks her lips. Woah. Tanya Denali is trying to do a little more than charm Jasper Hale. If the smirk on his face is anything to go by, he is open to manipulating her, and he is much better at it than I am.

"No, but I have a good vintage here, a good year 2080," Tanya says, pointing to a small container of blood, kept refrigerated in a mini-cooler. She pulls out the bottle and shakes it, redistributing the platelets.

I can't help but watch, fascinated and horrified in equal measure. She's going to drink blood—human blood. For all I know it could be my blood in that bottle. I plop into one of the chairs, all thought of the luscious food on the table gone.

Jasper is impassive at horror around him. He's the perfect Prospective. "Is that from District 7? I hear that blood has a nice note of maple, but obviously—" he grins, "—I don't speak from experience."

Tanya sips the blood and gives a little sigh. "Yes, it does. Wuite pleasant. Funny for you to know that."

"My mother works in a Blood Bank; it is her job to know such things."

My mother used to work in a Blood Bank. His mother must have gotten her job just like he had gotten everything else from my life. This could have been my brother, sophisticated, able to hold his own with a vampire. Instead, my brother is blind.

But he has something on Jasper: he's alive, and going to stay that way. For all his sophistication, I can't say that about Hale.

"You know," says Tanya, her gaze darkening . . . "you should be grateful for Edward, Jasper. Even if he's not your mentor."

"And why is that?" he asks, as if he's indulging her, when the truth is the entire existence of humanity is entirely dependent on the whims of vampires.

"Because he invented the chemical agent that suppresses my blood lust and keeps me from tearing you apart." She takes another sip of blood from her glass, her eyes never leaving his. "I'd imagine you'd taste delicious."

I know my heart accelerates; I can feel it pounding in my chest in a frenzied polka of fear. _Oom-pah.__Oom-pah_.

Jasper blinks once, and then gives a slow grin. "I'd imagine I would . . . darling."

I stand up. I do not want to be around to see Jasper get disemboweled, or possibly other things, but I'm hungry enough that I grab a bowl of a creamy looking soup and a whole loaf of bread to take with me, which draws Jasper's attention.

"Going so soon, Bella?" asks Jasper.

"Going to read up on strategy." This is a lie, but the moment I say it, I realize it's not a bad idea. If I'm going to try and figure out a way to keep other people, the kids, alive and not just myself, I'm going to have to know the Games backwards and forwards.

"And what's your strategy? Going the route of beauty?" he asks.

I'm not quite sure if he's trying to be charming, but it comes off rude. I'm not beautiful.

I wish I could tell him the truth, throw in his face that I am going to be saving people, sacrificing myself. But I know that my plan of saving the kids is controversial at best, and treasonous at worst, so I say instead, "I'm going the route of staying alive."

Tanya rolls her eyes.

"Sounds like you do need to read up on your strategy books then. Everyone knows the game's won by preemptive warfare, alliances, violence. Hiding out in the woods just leads to death by starvation—" Jasper smirks "—or worse."

"I'll take my chances," I say.

"No, you won't," a voice whispers in my ear.

I whirl and to my utter humiliation grab at thin air, almost stumbling in the process. Thankfully, no one else notices it because Tanya has stolen all the attention.

"Edward!" She cries, flinging herself into his arms in a blur of sequins and giggles.

Edward stands about six feet away from me, by the door. Damn, vampires are fast. It just isn't fair.

Edward transforms the hug into a kiss on the cheek. "I was under the impression that you were in District 12."

"I got bored."

"How unfortunate," he says coldly.

"Yes, for them." She waltzes over to the table, picks up her wine glass and takes a sip. "I don't know how they shall survive without me."

Her lips are stained red with blood, and as she tilt her head back to laugh I see dabs of blood, viscous and dark, staining her fangs, too. "Oh, that's right! They won't!"

No one laughs, not even Jasper, but even he's probably only silent because the joke's not funny, not because he has some problem with sending starving children off to die.

"Tanya, Isabella and I have Morphing Game business to discuss." Adroitly, he plucks the soup and baguette out of my hands. I turn to look at him, my lips parting slightly.

He raises an eyebrow at my appraisal. I quickly screw my lips together in a scowl.

"Bella hasn't had anything to eat yet today, darling, why don't you all stay?" She raises her wine-glass in a salute. "The vintage is delicious!"

"Isabella will be dining with me in my suite. The food may be slightly cold because of her tardiness." His red eyes find me harshly, and I wince from the force of it. "But for her training it's important to maintain a strict diet."

If strict diet means blood bars, I think I will revolt. I can almost taste the crunchy shell of the bread and the fluffy, buttery interior. I haven't had real food in so very long, but I will not beg.

"You didn't tell me where your room was," I say, my eyes still caressing each contour of the leg of turkey slathered in gravy, half eaten on Jasper's plate.

"If you want to have this discussion, and I guarantee you don't, we'll have it in private," Edward whispers. But this time, he doesn't move away, so instead brings a cold hand to touch the edge of my shoulder blade, herding me toward him.

A lamb towards the slaughter.

"Fine," I hiss back.

"Edward, you aren't going to let a human talk to you like that are you?" Tanya asks indignantly.

I shouldn't have underestimated the power of her jealousy, especially now that it's turned on me. I hate that I'm so physically underpowered here. If she wants to kill me there's nothing I can do.

"She's not a human anymore, neither of us are," says Jasper.

Everyone, Edward included, turns to look at Jasper Hale. He raises an eyebrow at the sudden attention, as if he hadn't just said something patently false.

In his hand, he holds a glass of blood he must have poured for himself. Is he going to drink it? That is sick! "We're Prospectives; soon we'll either be dead or immortal. Under Volturi law that makes us not human." The pride with which he speaks sounds just like those kids in the propaganda videos.

"I'm human," I retort.

Jasper scoffs.

"I'm human, and I'm proud of it." I elaborate.

look to see if this makes Edward mad, because I don't care about Tanya. If Edward, a man who calls the Game Master by his first name, won't kill me for treasonous thoughts, than how can Tanya hurt me?

My bravado calms Tanya, maybe because she thinks I'm crazy. The crazies usually die right after the weaklings in the arena. No reason to be mad at a dead girl.

"You have your work cut out for you, Edward." She sneers.

Edward, for his part, says nothing. Again his hand reaches out to the small of my back. I feel like a puppet, every touch a tug on my string— a manipulation.

The only sound is the subtle squeak of the floor bending as we walk through darkened corridors towards his room.

He remains silent even as he claps the door open and escorts me to a small table. Thankfully, my plate is full of pasta, laden with a thick red sauce. This is a good sign: pasta means carbs. Carbs mean he's going to give me a solid work out. He's taking this seriously.

I look up at him questioningly. I really want to eat, but he's already spared my life numerous times so maybe it's not wise to piss him off further.

"Eat, Isabella."

I dig into the pasta shoveling forkful upon forkful into my mouth. My lips end up smeared with the sauce, in a human parody of Tanya's blood stained ones. What would life be like if spaghetti could talk and think? Would we corral noodles up in cities and eat the disobedient. The thought makes me laugh a little hysterical giggle.

God, am I going insane? If I'm going to be dead soon, I'd at least like to be myself for the time I have left. I take deep breaths to clean the choked laughter from my lungs.

"May I ask what's so amusing?" Edward said. For the first time he looks almost sincere Like he could almost be my friend. But there's a puzzle piece missing.

"Don't you know?" I frown.

He leans forward. "No, I don't."

"But you said you could read thoughts?" Maybe he doesn't want to immerse himself in my mind. I wouldn't blame him; sometimes I just want to get out of my mind too.

"Usually."

I set down my fork with a clink. "Usually?"

"Never mind, we have more pressing matters to discuss than your internal monologue." He's back to his commanding self, and before I can ask him what exactly he means by "usually" he takes out a screen much like the vid-screen in my room, but smaller. With a simple touch of his finger it explodes into life, with a logo of a red V. Volterra-tech. Definitely won't be keeping a diary on this baby.

"This tablet has a list of information you need to give me about your strengths and weaknesses in the arena. You volunteered, so I assume you trained through level 15."

The logo disappears and the screen is filled with thirty or so pictures of weapons. Maces, clubs, axes, bows, darts, swords, knives, daggers and staves.

"I stopped at level 10," I say, praying he won't ask me why. Even if he can't read my thoughts, he'll surely be able to read my face.

He frowns, but moves his finger across the screen again, showing generic figures performing various skills. "Just write it in the report."

At first the symbols are simple and easy to understand, but eventually they become abstract: a picture of the sun, an image of a man baring his teeth, a series of numbers. Since when would I have to solve a math problem in the arena?

I look up at him, and am startled to find his eyes boring into mine, exactly like I am some kind of math problem he's trying to solve. Can he not read my thoughts? That must have been what he was saying earlier.

I expect him to make a remark on that, but instead he says something that knocks the wind out of me. "Are you mated?"


	10. 9

Author's Note:

Sorry for the wait guys, but it's here now—yay! And boy, is it here. Big thanks to my beta's Someone Aka Me and Ubergeekness, or Mella. Updates should now be weekly or so as all beta business is settled. Also this was the longest chapter I've written for you guys so far. As usual any who review get a teaser (unless I'm posting the next the same day, in which case I figure it makes more sense just to post the chapter.) Apologies to anyone I may have not replied to last chapter around. This chapter I will be replying to all reviews.

Some other misc notice, check out the Twilight Post Secret Contest. If you're interested there is still time to write for it (entries close on November 30th.)

Make sure to check out the blog for visual and audio supplementary material! Links on my profile.

Also, anyone else SO EXCITED for the new Hunger Games movie. Looks soo good. I can't even.

[9]

"Are you mated?"

"What?" I'm assuming he doesn't mean mated as in check-mated, but we didn't study vampire courtship rituals in school thoroughly, as most, if not all, Vampires were mated already.

The little I do know is that every vampire has a mate, and who their mate is isn't a choice. I can remember the passage in the textbook because all the girls spent weeks giggling over it.

"Another example of the inherent superiority of the vampire race is their tendency to take mates. A vampire bond grows slowly, but once acknowledged is irrefutable, passionate and eternal. There is no infidelity."

The real subject of gossip were the rumors of humans disappearing, being stolen away and changed by mateless vampires. But they were just stories. Yet . . . I wonder if this is this his way of flirting with me?

Instantly, I dismiss the idea. I'm a human with a crooked nose, frizzy, brown hair and eyes the color of shit. He's an immortal god-monster.

"Bonded, engaged, married, betrothed, hitched . . . in love?" He rattles through the list cleanly, until he gets to the last phrase which he spits out with disgust.

"Bonded?" Calling it that makes it sound like construction work..

His eyes don't narrow and his expression is as nonchalant as ever, but his pupils dialaite. "Stop blushing."

What kind of person reprimands someone for a reaction they can't control?

I glance down at the spoon and see my distorted reflection, complete with ruddy cheeks. "I don't see how it's any of your business."

"You don't?" He looks at me carefully, and I know it's a warning even though he doesn't look angry.

"No." It comes out timid, but it comes out.

"Well, then." He leans back in the chair.. "You're dismissed."

"What?"

"You're dismissed. You can go." With an economical grace, he holds his hands above his head and claps once. Behind me, the doors open.

I reach for the tablet, but he doesn't make any move to give it to me. "Listen, I'm sorry. It's not my fault I blush, I just don't feel comfortab—"

His face is as still as water at daybreak. "I said you were dismissed, Isabella. Was I not clear?"

"I don't understand. You said you needed me to fill out my information on that thing, but you're not giving it to me?" I point at it, as if he had forgotten and not taken it from the table on purpose.

"Why would I give you the tablet, Isabella? Why should I care what you can and cannot do, what survival skills you may or may not have? Why should I help a girl who doesn't have the mental facility to answer a single question?"

Enough. All my fear crystallizes into one single long frustrated gasp. "Why should you help me? Try, 'why should I trust you?' If I was with someone, why would I ever tell you? So you could torment them if I displeased you or said something wrong?"

"You will trust me because you have no choice. You will trust me because if you don't you will die."

Outwardly, he gives no sign that he's furious; his tone is droll as if I've just suggested something so ridiculous he won't even indulge me by responding emotionally, but his eyes are scraping across my every imperfection. It's clear from his sneer that he's finding me _wanting, _but for being disgusted with me he looks a surprisingly long time.

"You know what?" I ask.

His eyes practically glow, two coals heated up from darkness by annoyance, but I don't care. If I'm going to piss him off, I'm going to do it right.

"Maybe I want to die. Maybe that'd be better than being a murderer." I stand up from the chair, but my hand still grips it hard, tethering me, keeping me from falling down.

"You want to die?" he asks softly. There's something burnt about his smell, caramelized and cold; sweet, but metallic and _off_.

I take a step backwards. "There are worse things." The little girl with blood for eyes, flashes before me, the girl from my nightmares.

I shake my head. "Anyway, I can't trust you. I can't trust anybody. What's to stop you from reporting me or even just getting bored, like Tanya." My own honesty shocks me. I hadn't meant to be so candid.

"I am nothing like that woman," he says.

"Prove it."

"I forget sometimes. We have so many plans for you, yet you—you don't know anything. You can't know anything. But—" His face twists into a grimace. "I suppose it may be necessary to enlighten you somewhat."

And then he's gone, blurring around the room.

He practically teleports, all at once at the window, the floor, and the vid-screen. Finally, he stops by the table and opens his hand. At least twenty little black spheres tumble onto the white tablecloth, bouncing and clattering against the dirty dishes and onto the floor.

I try to peer around him to see what he gathered from every nook and cranny, but Edward merely side-steps me. "Look," he says steady and low. I can feel the vibrations from his voice in soles of my feet.

Just as I'm about to ask at what, because the only thing I can see right now is the square, strong line of his jaw, he holds something up. It's the size of a pebble, but black and very plastic. He squeezes it with incredible gentleness. I had thought the textbooks exaggerated the physical godliness of vampires, but Edward doesn't just have super-human strength, but superhuman control of that strength. Perhaps the stories in the textbook of vampires performing thought-impossible surgeries on humans were true.

"Bonded?" A girls voice asks, tinny and gritty, filtered through a tiny speaker on the plastic pebble.

"Stop blushing." A man's voice deep and commanding replies. Edward.

Whiny and petulant. "I don't see how it's any of your business."

It's me. A recording.

"Bugs," I whisper, as if they can hear me.

He tosses away the sphere. "They're disengaged, but only for a moment. I will signal their respawning in the walls by commenting on your token." A long elegant finger gestures to the silver bull pin on my chest. "Until then we can talk freely."

"You say that as if they're are alive."

He smirks. "They are." He brings his hands upwards, gesturing to the Zepplin as a whole. "This is. A marvel of vampire bio-engineering, half alive, half not. Much like me." 

"Bio-engi—"

"The explanation itself would take an hour, and for you to understand it, seven years schooling more."

I pivot slowly, looking at the walls, at the floor. They're still and give no hint that they're alive. I don't know what I expected; I guess thought if it was alive the walls to go up and down like the belly of a large sleeping animal.

"Focus." Edward reprimands sharply. "There are some key misunderstandings I'm going to clear up for you. First of all, I wasn't _assigned_ to be your mentor. I chose you."

"That's not possible. It's based on what district you come from. Anyway, how would you even know it was going to be me?"

"Do you take pleasure in interrupting me?"

His eyes are wide and guileless, but there is a sharpness to his smile that makes me grit my teeth. I had my share of controlling teachers in training school, but Edward is on a whole other level.

"I enjoy an unprecedented level of privilege in the Capitol due to some _mistakes_ I made when I was younger, mistakes I am now trying to rectify. Because of my inability to read your mind, among other factors, you have been pre-selected as the Prospective most likely to successfully aid my associates and I with our cause."

So I'm right, he can't read my mind, but what _other factors_ could there be? _Please let him not know what I did to my brother. Please let him not have chosen me because he thinks I'll be a good killer._

He must see the questions teeming in my eyes, because he elaborates. "I cannot tell you exactly what our cause is, let alone how we plan on achieving it. All I can tell you is that it is diametrically opposed to the current Volterran government."

"That's treason." I breathe out. "I could report you." I am in shock. My own mother was killed for saying these things, and here I am, playing with fire—no—dancing in the inferno with the devil himself.

"You won't," he says with all the lightness of someone making small-talk.

He's right, but there's no way he could know that without reading my mind, which he can't. But him plotting treason with me, after knowing me less than forty-eight hours? Well, it's stupid. And I don't entrust my life to stupid people.

"You're putting a lot of trust in someone whose thoughts you can't read." I cross my arms.

He gives a short laugh and moves closer to me. "Just because I don't know your thoughts doesn't mean I don't know you." Without looking, he reaches backwards and plucks the tablet from the table.

"Those questions? This?" He waves the tablet front of my face before setting it down again. "A prop, a formality to appease the Volturi. I know everything about you already. Isabella Swan, daughter of Charlie Swan and Renee Swan, née Dwyer. Good with knives and poisons. Can't shoot a bow to save her life. Can run fast but not fast enough. Excellent swimmer. Good with knots and boats. Above average sense of direction. Greatest weakness: stealth. Lacking grace of any kind."

I re-cross my arms—tighter. "Those are just facts anyone could find out from my school record."**  
><strong>

"Rich girl. Grew up with dad in high places. Mom got scared of seeing her baby playing with knives, so she acted out." His adoption of the District 2 accent—bright vowels mutated by thick consonants—makes me cringe. 

He's closer still now. I can feel his cool breath on my skin. "Mom got caught. Killed. Dad went crazy. You, well, you went a little crazy too, Isabella. Didn't you?"

I back up, tripping over the chair and landing on it. "Shut up."

But he doesn't let up, his eyes capturing mine and not letting me go. "Hurt your brother. Not just hurt, _damaged_. Felt so bad about it, you thought you'd act out, too."

"I said shut up," I stammer. I turn and scramble toward the door, but I only come crashing into his chest. Everywhere I go, there is Edward.

He ignores me, stepping forward, and I'm forced to move further backward or else end up in his arms. "But then you met a friend, good old Jacob Black: sunny, solid, happy." He looks at me meaningfully. "_Ignorant_ of the real struggles and sins of this world, of _our_ world. Ignorant of who you really are."

"Jacob knows me."

Edward backs up slightly, satisfied that I won't try and escape, making a low humming in his throat, non-committal. "You know what he thought as you volunteered for his sister?"

"No, because I'm not some kind of mind rapist." I sneer. What right has Edward to know these things, let alone taunt me with them?

Edward contorts his face into an innocent expression of worry, which reminds me so much of Jacob it makes my heart ache. "I will never be as pure as Bella Swan." It's such an accurate imitation that I almost believe it's not satirical. 

I'm not sure if I want to cry in his arms or kill him. Instead I ask, "Why are you doing this?"

He bends down to whisper in my ear. _Look me in the eye_, I want to scream. _Look me in the eye as you say these things about me._ These true things.

"Why?" He hisses, repeating my question. "You've spent so long thinking you can't ever make up for what you've done, haven't you, Isabella? You're sure that you will die with your sins, or worse, live with them forever, damned to eternal perdition."

I turn my head to get a glimpse of him, but he is gone, a disembodied voice. It's as if he's coming from inside my own head.

He croons in my right ear. "You don't have to live with that, Isabella. You can change the world."

In my left. "_We_ can change the world."

"I can't do anything like that," I whisper, choked. I had thought about trying to save the children, but I hadn't thought about the repercussions. My thoughts were all scrappy and torn, so torn that I didn't even think they could be pieces of a bigger picture. "You said yourself I'm not pure."

His harsh laugh rings out so discordantly that I flinch. It sounds like vampire music. "You think it's the pure that change the world? If that were the case you and I wouldn't be having this conversation. The Volturi never would have taken power. You'd be in a quaint university, lounging in bed with a boyfriend, fretting about the economy and whether your philosophy degree would result in you being poor or absolutely destitute."**  
><strong>

"University? Philosophy?" The words sounding ancient and mystical.

He sighs, but I can't see where from. Analytically, it's most likely that he's moving so quickly I can't see him, but understanding the effect doesn't make it less powerful.

"What power do I have?" Maybe it's because I can't see him, but I feel somehow freed by his odd omnipresence. "God, I can't even protect people from myself, how can I save the world?"

In the encroaching darkness, the sun has long since given way to the skeletal crescent-moon, and through the skin of the Zepplin I can just barely see the stars. The strange shadow-light silhouettes Edward.

"It's because you've hurt people that you are the one to do it," he says.

"So only evil people can have power? That's why you want me? Because I'm a monster, like you?"

He gives a bark of a laugh, dark as a starless sky. "You aren't a monster."

"Don't laugh at me." I want it to come out sharp and imposing, but it comes out more of rasp.

My attempts to dislodge his mirth fail. His eyes still dance. "You don't even have a conception of the word."

"I blinded my own brother," I murmur into my folded hands. The weight of the words settle onto me. I've never said it like that before. I've never admitted it aloud. I didn't think it would feel good, but I thought there would be a release.

There isn't.

His posture softens slightly, and when he speaks it's almost tender. "You aren't pure, but that doesn't mean you aren't _good_. The pure are the ones who think themselves heroes. The good are the ones who actually are. I believe in you because of your mistakes; I believe in you because only people who understand the perils of darkness can have a prayer of defeating it."

"Believe in me to do what? Are you talking about— " I don't even know how to express the sentiment.

"I am not talking about anything until you are an official part of our organization, which means being changed. Which means winning the games." He glides from the table to the edge of the room. With pensive slowness he trails his fingertips over the walls of the Zepplin, skating over it like a skipped rock. There is something about the way that he touches the wall, drawing connections from stars, composing constellations, that affects me. It's as if he's performing magic.

A puppeteer of the sky.

He turns around slowly, fingertips lingering. "So, what say you?"

Do I really have a choice?

He steps closer, but I don't step back. I can feel every molecule between us. I want to keep the feeling, as painfully _present _as it makes me feel.

"Train me, then." This times the words come out as bold as I feel, but my voice doesn't sound like my own.

He looks me over for a moment—_every part_ of me. I can't help the blush that flows from my cheeks. There is no scorn in his expression this time. Some part of me wishes desperately that he's liking what he sees.

He brings one hand to touch my cheek, and I know I should move away, but I can't. "Perhaps I will."

He sees the forest fire of blush spreading across my skin and withdraws. "I'm almost positive that the very sincere promise of atonement will allow you to trust me, even when it seems I've led you false. But only _almost_."

"I thought you know everything about me? What's keeping you from making your decision?" It's not until I notice that somehow he seems taller, that I realize I'm hunched and cowering before him. Funny, he could have threatened to break my neck. He could have actually broken my neck, and I would have screamed, but I wouldn't have whimpered. His emotional assault is more effective than any physical one.

He moves back in front of me, pulling up a chair so that we are eye level. The hordes of dead bugs are strewn out between us like toppled chess pieces. "I know everything you've done, and I can make logical conjectures from that about how you feel, but there's one thing I don't yet know." He takes one of the spheres between his fingers and crushes it like a nut. "Are you in love with Jacob Black?"

I turn from him, so that I can only see him through the curtain of my hair. "I don't have to tell you that."

"If you want me to insure your survival in the arena, you do."

"Jealous?" I snort.

"I could care less about your feelings towards me. But I need to know if at the end of the day you're greatest priority is changing the world, making up for your mistakes and allowing others never to be forced to make the same ones, or about returning home safe to your sweetheart."

My lips part slightly at the shock of it all.

His voice is so soft so sure, and his gaze stirs something hungry in me. I am about to say, yes, anything. I would do _anything_, but then, he smirks.

I hate that smirk. Like I'm something to be triumphed over. Like he's better than me.

"I love Jacob Black." I huff.

The smirk widens.

I bite my lip in frustration. "Why are you so happy?"

"Prepositions, Isabella, make all the difference."

"I don't follow."

He rolls his eyes.

"What? I studied Kali knife fighting and field craft, not sentence structure." I retort. 

He gives me a condescending smile. "You love Jacob Black, but you are not _in_ love with him." He draws away, and I can't help but lean forward by an inch, some part of me drawn to the echoes of him. God, it's pathetic, no worse—dangerous. Yes, he may be against the Volterran government, but the enemy of your enemy is not always your friend, and even if they are friendship is a dangerous game if you're friend is ambitious. And Edward clearly has _plans._

"I didn't say that I wasn't." I say gruffly, leaning backwards. The chair creaks, giving my façade of bravery away.

He raises an eyebrow. "Tell me, Isabella. Did you ever yearn for him to kiss you? Were there moments of silence when you tilted your head up so prettily and _begged_ with your eyes for his lips to meet yours?"

"I—"

"No?" He smiles but it is so sharp. "Then were your fantasies of a rougher nature?" He taps a finger against his chin almost casually, like a professor puzzling over how to explain a particularly complicated concept, but his eyes darken in a way that is not at all clinical.

His eyes stalk even my most microscopic of movements. "I'd imagine you'd hardly be content with sweet nothings."

I push up from the chair. "I don't want to talk about this," I say stiffly, taking a step backwards.

He doesn't stand up but sits perfectly still. "Would you want him to pin you down onto the soft, glassy beach as you tried to scratch and claw him? Maybe, you fantasized of him biting you and marking you as _his_, until the only word you could remember was his name? Until you writhed like a little fish gasping for air, gasping for life, grasping for _him._" Each word falls over and into the other, the cadence of his voice musical and feral at the same time.

The thought of Jacob ever doing anything like _that_ would make me laugh and squirm were it not for the fact I can't help but picture Edward doing these things to me. And that doesn't make me laugh at all. "No, I don't think of Jacob t-that way."

He doesn't have the same problem of mixing darkness with amusement. "Of course you don't."

"I don't think about anyone that way." I clarify.

But this is a lie; I have now. I've imagined Edward pinning my hands against the table, twisting my body towards him and crashing his lips against mine.

He hums low in his throat. "Are you sure?"

I gulp. "P-positive."

He smiles, and this time it is almost polite. "I wouldn't expect an innocent like you to think those things."

I blush, but say, "Edward, if you know anything about me, you know I'm not innocent." All too late, I realize I've fallen into a trap.

"So then you do have such dreams?"

"No, I—"

"I suggest you not argue the point further unless you want a demonstration of the full extent of your naïveté."

His face has fallen back into that eerie stillness, but now that I know what lies beneath it, I can't help but be more wary.

I will never take his smile at face value again.

He is oblivious to my revelation, because he continues on. "I'd also strongly advise that you try to contain that blush of yours."

I bring my hands to my neck as if this will protect me. "Blood lust?"

"Something like that," he says colorlessly, but his eyes don't leave the spot on my neck that my hand covers.

"I thought the chemicals in blood prevented that?"

He stands up, tucking his chair in neatly to the table. "Oh, they do. I imagine if I was on my normal diet of animal blood there would have been an incident long ago. Probably the first moment I was close to you in the atrium of your little Blood Temple."

"Blood Bank." I correct instinctively, suppressing a shiver at the image of him cracking my neck. I'll have to get used to the idea of lethal violence quickly, because I'll be facing the reality of it soon enough.

"A bank is where you make deposits you can get back; a temple is where you make sacrifices." His eyes flit across my skin in a way that makes me feel as if I am the sacrifice.

The shiver I tried to fight, wins, blighting my body with goosebumps. Hastily, I change the subject. "Fine, so I'm not _in _love with Jacob. But you don't know everything about me." I tilt my chin upwards.

"Don't I?" he asks. For the first time _he_ looks surprised. When his eyes widen, when really open up, you can see every shade of red in them. It's beautiful, like the way the sea-glass darkens when they're wet.

But he's a monster. I have to remember that. He was talking about killing me as being an incident. And it doesn't matter that he was nice before when he untied my shoes or told me I didn't have to worry about what I said.

"I'm going to save them," I look at the now star-painted walls. I can do this.

Edward tilts his head again, but this time it throws his whole face into shadow. "Who?" he asks, so low it vibrates my skin a little.

"The kids." With the bugs off for the first time, I can be completely candid. "I'm not going to kill them. I'm going to protect them."

Something snaps. I look down and see his hand clasped around the jagged edge of a newly broken fork. He sees that I see it and quickly spirits it away.

I decide that if I'm going to continue ruining his plans than I should be grateful that it's a piece of silverware broken and not my neck.

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as if to stave off a headache. "You could only save one of them. It would be emotional and physical torture to try and beat the game, and in the end you would lose."

"And it's not torture already? I'm being forced to fight for my life, to kill people, for a prize I don't even want?"

He grimaces. "There is no one less in need of instruction on the evils of the Morphing Games than I, Isabella, but you're not going to kill yourself to save anyone."

"I didn't say that." Framed as suicide—which in truth it is—I feel much less sure of my plan.

"The implication was perfectly clear." He moves closer to me. "Put such thoughts out of your mind."

As he nears, my stomach tightens. Too close. He's too close.

"I have to do it," I mumble, hoping that he won't hear me.

His hand stills in his hair and he turns to face me. "You're serious, aren't you," he says incredulously.

Before I can confirm this, he moves toward me. "I won't let you." Roughly he grabs my wrists and I try to tug away from him, but his grip is unshakable. "If I can convince you of anything let it be this: you will not die in the games."

His hands are cold, but when they touch me I feel so warm, no hot. It's like there's chemical reactions every place our skin meets.

I want. I need—

He turns me slowly, his hands wrapping around my abdomen, pushing me into him. I was wrong he doesn't smell sweet or sour. He smells like a nothing I can name.

Then—oh god—one of his hands draws back the curtain of my hair twisting it, capturing it. With the other, he trails a gentle path down my neck with his fingernail tracing a vein.

"Isabella." He cajoles in a falsetto that lends an illusion of vulnerability. "Promise me you'll do as I say. Forget about this nonsense."

"I, no—"

The nail digs in. "What was that?"

I try to clench my fists, but my nerves are all cross-wired.

"Isabella." He sing-songs over my skin, his lips dancing against the small invisible hairs on my neck. "Answer me."

Then, he presses a single kiss to my neck.

It undoes me.

"Yes," I whisper.

Instantly, assured of my compliance, he lets go. I fall to my knees, but he doesn't offer me a hand up, just surveys me dispassionately.

"What the hell?" I ask when I finally get my voice back.

He looks at me silent, expressionless, but his eyes are just a bit wider. He's also not acknowledging my swearing at him..

I bring my hands up to my neck. "Seriously? What was that?"

"I play to win; you will, too."

I snort, hiding in the hole of sarcasm. "Not if you kill me first."

His gaze roots me out.

"If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead."

I guess I really have to play his game. I'm not going to kill the children, but he has to believe I will. Who knows what he'll do if it seems like I'm not going along with his plans.

Still, I want to leave. So I do.

His hands remain at the table, his eyes don't even meet mine, but the masculine weight of his voice stops me. "You do not leave until I dismiss you."

I sigh. Fine. I can do rules. I had a training professor, Banner, who was this strict. Although he wasn't half as beautiful—not even a quarter, really. I bend my knees to sit back down.

"The bugs are set to be fully functional in less than a minute. Once they are, you are never to mention any of this again. If you do I will claim that you are trying to weasel your way out of the competition by plotting treason. In the trial against you, I will argue passionately for your immediate death."

My breath catches in my throat. How is it that I haven't even entered the arena and I already feel like I'm fighting for my life?

"And, Isabella, make no mistake, I will win."

And I had threatened him before about telling someone. He was right, I was naïve, no, even worse — I was foolish to think that I could ever have power in this game we were playing, ever be a step ahead of him. I don't know why, but I almost feel choked with bitter tears at the thought of it.

I had actually thought he was stupid for trusting me, when the truth was there was never any way he could have been hurt by me. He doesn't care about me. I'm just a tool. It was amazing how naïve I could be, even after years of training in manipulation. The only explanation was he had dazzled me somehow.

"Secondly—" he holds up two fingers, numbering his list "—my first goal is your survival. As I am better equipped to coach and teach you than anyone else, and you will follow my instructions explicitly. This starts with not complaining about whatever choices the stylist makes when you meet with her tomorrow."

For the first time I see what appears a genuine smile over Edward's face. It's almost as disconcerting as his glare; it looks so out of place. "Esme may seem demure, but she is a better stylist than anyone, perhaps even better at her job than I am at mine."

Fashion is perhaps my weakest area after stealth, but I don't let Edward know this, partly because I'm sure he already does, and partly for a reason I don't quite understand, I don't want him to know how unstable I am in heels. "Fine."

A thought occurs to me as I stare at the bugs, and then at the walls. Nothing has appeared to have grown or changed, but then again I hadn't noticed the bugs in the first place. "Won't this thing—"

"The Cloud Gate." He corrects.

"Won't it monitor that you killed the bugs; won't it sense a gap in its records?"

He nods. "It will notice the gap, but with some rewiring and reconditioning of it's nervous system I should be able to convince it that that it had an immune malfunction. Namely that its built in security systems accidentally pegged parts of its own body, if you will, as hostile."

"Oh," I say to the floor, not looking at him, not really comprehending, but tired of looking a feeling like an off balance idiot.

If it wasn't totally crazy I would almost say that Edward's expression softens a little, "This is a lot for you to take in, I understand, but—" In an instant, whatever gentleness there was in his expression disappears.

"But what?" I ask, baffled.

"But that's a very charming pin you have there." He gestures to the pin in my chest, and I can't help but sigh.

That's our agreed upon cue. The bugs are functional again. _Hello, anonymous audience. I missed you. _

I would be getting no more answers from Edward tonight. In fact, it was possible that he wouldn't talk to me candidly again until the games were over. I realize the sinking feeling in my gut isn't because I won't be getting answers, but because some part of me liked the honesty of Edward, no matter how brutal it was. True honesty was something I hadn't had a taste of in almost five years. I hadn't realized how freeing it could be. It made my blood electric . . . or maybe that was something else?

No, it had to be the candidness.

"Thanks." I fingered the two bulls horns, overlaid upon each other. "Emily, Jacob's sister, gave it to me."

He gives an almost genial smile. So _he_ can be _nice_. "That was a very kind thing you did, volunteering for her, but I expect you wanted some of the glory, too."

I look at him in confusion. "What?"

I am beginning to see hidden shadows in his smile, and I can't help be almost be in equal parts fascinated and disturbed. "Stirb und werde."

I don't know what he just said— but I can guess. We had to do a unit on codes; was it possible that this was just a formulated code? If S=1— no. No, the answer was simpler somehow. Maybe the words were modifications of English sounds.

Does this hold the answer to the mysterious "cause"?

Unfortunately, the best I can come up with is, "Wearing the stirrup?" 

I didn't think it was possible to surprise Edward more than a quirked eyebrow, but he bursts into laughter. Something catches in me, like my heart is velcro and his laugh has a thousand little hooks to latch right onto it.

I glare. Partially because I am angry at him for making fun of me, partially because I'm angry at myself for smiling at his laugh.

His chuckles soothe and his grin compresses to a smile. "You know what it means; you've seen it plastered across every surface of District 2."

"Your vitality is your greatest asset?"

The memory of the smile lingers on his lower lip, even as his upper lip falls. "Try a bit more _topical_ to our current situation."

Not for the first time, I think it is convenient Edward cannot read my mind, because I think loudly: _I have the most treasonous, arrogant, asshole of a mentor on the history of the planet. _Childish, I know, but I can't help but regress under the pressure.

"I give up," I say instead.

The smile is gone now entirely, leaving only boredom and disappointment. Except his eyes, his eyes still watch me with unnerving patience. "It's late and we've had a long conversation, but if this is the kind of effort you're going to put into training, then Tanya was right, I do have my work cut out for me."

"Die and become." I blurt out. "The slogan for the Morphing Games." The words and syllable numbers map out better than anything else I can think of.

"And what does this mean?" he asks, reminding me of the times a teacher would try to have us figure out new weapon hold on our own.

I can't help but roll my eyes. This is what we learn in first-year: the symbolism, the history. Why is Edward making me repeat it now when I could be in a nice comfortable bed, forgetting all about causes and atonement, running back to my old friend denial. "Only through the power of death, can we be transformed into a vampire, only through morphing, metamorphosis, can we grow."

"A caterpillar dies to become a butterfly, a snake sheds its skin. Growth is loss at its heart, but humans only die once."

On the surface I could take it to be a comment for me to stay alive, but I know there's a deeper meaning here. "But vampires never die, never change," I say slowly.

For the second time, Edward smiles at me. It's utterly devastating and he knows it. I'll have to keep myself aware of the fact that it seems Edward will use every weapon in his arsenal to bend me to his "cause." Certainly, his beauty is one of them.

"Anything can change with enough pressure and force, even vampires. Throw lame old graphite into the fiery furnace of the deep, dark mantle of the earth and what do you get—"**  
><strong>

His face is illuminated by starlight as he speaks. I hadn't realized it until now, now the outside wall of his suite is completely coated with constellations. They cast thousands of glimmering dots over Edward's face. He's sparkling like . . .

"Diamonds," I say.**  
><strong>

He gives me a pensive look. "I know you're tired, Isabella, but if you could stay for just one moment more."

I'm about to grumble and ask why. I am tired of riddles and cross-examinations. I just want to sleep. Forever maybe. Just as I open my mouth to say so, I notice something: a burst of red at my feet.

I look down.

"There it is," he says, as if he had been holding his breath, waiting for something, but of course, he hadn't. As a vampire he has no reason to breathe.

"What is it?" I look at the dot. It's growing bigger and bigger.

"Just watch," he says, reverently.**  
><strong>

As the light grows it fractures, and while most of the off-shoots are red some are white. It divides and divides until the whole floor is covered with patterns of light, patterns that look almost like a city.

Then, the lights burst into shapes below us, towers, spires and long illuminated neon ropes of streets looping between and around every surface, with cars zipping through them at unimaginable speeds. Soon the shapes and shadows grow from the floor onto the walls.

It isn't _like_ a city— it _is_ one, and we are plummeting right into it.

"Welcome to Volterra, Isabella."


	11. 10

Authors Note:

Thanks guys for all the wonderful reviews. Super thanks to my betas, Someone AKA me and Ubergeekness. They really helped clean up this story for me, and I can't express my gratitude enough.

Hope you enjoy. Updates should be weekly now.

[10]

Come morning, I'm ushered out of the Cloud Gate by Tanya, who seems to know just what to say in order to part the crowds that have gathered to watch our arrival. Edward is nowhere to be seen, but he doesn't need to be. I can hear his words, feel his presence as if it's been seared into my skin.

In Tanya's opinion, we're going much too slow, and she keeps tutting impatiently. "Places to be, things to do, darlings."

She says "darlings," but the real cause of the delay is me, because I'm gaping at all the different kinds of buildings in Volterra. There is no sense to be made of the hodgepodge of architectures. On one street there might be a many-tiered pagoda right next to a Victorian mansion, complete with huge storybook windows. Not to mention the vampires. There are almost as many here as there are people in District 2, and Volterra can't be half the size. The streets are packed with lean, beautiful red-eyed monsters, and they're all staring at me.

Finally, we make it to a sleek, black, three-story building. I've seen pictures of it on the feeds from previous Morphing Games. It's the stylist headquarters.

"Make over time." Tanya chirps. "Have to look pretty for the opening parade."

My stomach twists into a nauseous knot at the thought of even more vampires staring at me. The streets will be packed for tonight's processional.

Tanya nudges me forward with more force than necessary. "You won't win sponsors looking like you do now, Isabella."

Winning sponsors is an important part of the game. Anyone who has enough money, and it does take quite a bit of money, can send gifts to the Prospectives. Anything from food to weapons to life saving medicine can be tied up to a silver-parachute and dropped into the arena.

Also, Tanya's right. Beauty is an important part of winning sponsors, because the vampires are evaluating you not only a contestant, but as someone who may be joining their city and society in the future. No one wants an ugly new arrival.

I wonder if I'll even need to bother with sponsors, since Edward seems to have a huge amount of influence. Not to mention he's trying to over-throw the government; what role do sponsors play in a revolution? I still can't accept or even understand his plan—what he told me of it at least, which was nothing really, besides a few cryptic remarks. Even less do I understand why he touched me and did . . . those other things.

I mean, I understood why he did it: to manipulate me. Dazzle me with dark touches, diamond-stars and feelings I did not and do not understand.

What I don't understand is why it worked.

Oh, it won't work for the long-term. I'm not killing children for him—not for an imaginary rebellion—not for anything. I've lost so much of myself already. I can't afford to lose any more, do any more evil. He can think that I am following his orders. In fact, my plan, rough and unformed as it is, depends on it.

But I couldn't think about that when I was with Edward. All I could think about was . . . well, I couldn't really think of anything.

I just wanted to be near him.

Somehow this thought is almost as disturbing as the Prospective whose eyes I clawed out in a dream. The little girl.

After we enter the building, Jasper and I part ways with little ceremony, Jasper heading to the second floor and I to the eighth, via an elevator. Again, vampires have all these powers and yet they still have machines to do things for them. It baffles me.

I wait for a little while outside of a door that leads into a room with walls of tinted sepia glass. Just as I finally get up the courage to knock, the door swings open, and in front of me are two vampires, one dressed in bright floral prints with what appears to be a giant petunia on her head, the other clad in a rainbow-neon leopard print unitard.

"Cynthia," says the one with the flower on her head, "she could be worse, right?"

"I don't know, her nose looks like it was added on as an afterthought," the leopard-lady says.

"I'd say it was added on without any thought at all." Rejoins the walking garden.

They chuckle in unison.

I would find this much more amusing if my life didn't depend on getting sponsors, and if getting sponsors didn't depend on me not having parts of my body on crooked.

No, that's a lie.

I would hate them no matter what.

Before I can vocalize my distaste, they've put me in a chair and have begun the smelly process of, washing, dying, cropping and clipping.

I wonder how they know they have the right person—they didn't ask me my name. What if they'd accidentally kidnapped some poor wandering human for a make-over attack? Upon further thought, I suppose they don't have to worry about that, there are only twenty-four humans in Volterra right now.

Bree, aka flowery lady, aka botanical bitch with bright red eyes, doesn't acknowledge me until after she's already put three coats of foil on my head and painted some chunky white goop over my hair that smells like permanent markers.

"Isabella, this is going to hurt just an einie-minnie-mo of a bit." She turns to Cynthia and whispers, "That is a human expression—right?"

As she brings two fingers to my nose, one of her flower petals from her head piece gets in my eye. I'm about to wave it away, but the pressure from her finger increases.

Crack.

"Fuck!"

I think she just broke my nose.

They both titter in amusement at the explicative.

Normally, I would fight them, or struggle do something, but it's pointless. They're a million times stronger and faster than me, and any action on my part would be an embarrassment at best and suicide at worst.

"What a charming little human!" says Bree.

A rainbow-leopard-print-clad boob is shoved in my face as Cynthia reaches over my head to grab something from the shelf above me.

The pain isn't that bad, but I'm a little nervous about the small trickle of blood running over my lip. It's hot, pure, and flowing fast. I know that vampires have their blood lust fixed chemically, but there's still a reason why no humans live in the Capitol.

Both Bree and Cynthia seem entirely unaffected by the wound. I, however, am not. It's beginning to throb unpleasantly. It's not that I can't handle the pain, it's just that my strategy for coping with pain is to deal with it; patch it up, run it off, do something else to take my mind off of it. I can't now though; I'm trapped between a rainbow-leopard and a moving plant.

I should start thinking up strategies, because there's no way that I'm going to get sponsors if it's their fashion sense I'll be subjected too.

"Here you go for the pain, Belly-da-Boop," chimes Cynthia, her chest now away from my face. She dabs at the blood lightly with a cotton pad. Her touches are so gentle and fast, so I'm amazed that these are the same monsters who can pull a tree out of the ground like a weed. Then she spreads another goop, this one blue and slightly runny, over my nose. The pain dissipates instantly.

Bree kneels down, takes off my shoes and plunges my feet into a bubbling mixture.  
>"So are you absolutely, over the top, amazing-thrilled for the Morphing Games?"<p>

"I'm honored to be given the opportunity." I repeat the stock line. I'll have to think of some other ones, considering eventually all the Prospectives are interviewed.

Bree makes a whistling noise through her teeth and sticks my hands into a concoction similar to the one my feet are floating in. "Posh, posh! Come on Bella-la-lella, you can give us the real ice-cream scoop. I was just like you once!"

Cynthia is at my hair now, removing the foil. Her fingers brush the base of my neck, tilting my head back. Does my neck need cosmetic surgery too. Just a quick dab of cream and a cotton pad to fix it? I shudder.

"Head back, and tell us all about how you're feeling. We're here for you." She coos as she speaks, but as I tilt my head back into the tub, I can see in the mirror they exchange a brief snicker.

If I'll ever find vampire confidants, I don't know, but these two are definitely not them. That doesn't mean I can't use them, however. "Which Morphing Games did you win? I don't remember seeing you."

Bree drips something hot over my eyebrows. "I was in the third one, actually!"

I try not to wince at the heat. "Really? How'd you win?"

"You didn't watch it in history class?" she asks through pouted lips.

I flinch as the hot substance solidifys on my face. Is my face so ugly they literally are casting a new one? "I think that's one of the few I haven't seen."

Rip!

Cynthia pulls off the layer of wax from my face, taking what feels like half of my eyebrows with it. It hurts only slightly less than my broken nose. "Oh pity-party for you then, Bree was a genius."

The sound of my teeth grinding almost drowns out my own voice. "Yeah?"

"Yeah?" Bree mocks as she removes my feet and hands from their imprisonment of scented water and bubbles. "It was a year set around a lake. They did everything to us you could imagine, quick-sand, sun poisoning, forest fires—you name it."

I don't say that these horrors are pretty tame compared to the later Morphing Games. One time the food in the arena was poisoned—all of it. Another time, the dead Prospectives were resurrected by electricity and set upon the few remaining ones.

What feels like millions of tiny jets of water shoot towards my skull before Cynthia's hands begin to massage my scalp. I can tell it's Cynthia by the neon bracelets that jangle as she washes my hair.

"The problem was everyone was all spread out; lots of good runners and hiders in Bree's year. Anyway, like the clever girl she was, she figured out that everyone needs water; right? And all the water in the arena has to come from somewhere. So, she took all the poison from her darts and just poured it in the lake. It was strong poison—vampire made, sent by a sponsor, but no one would have thought it was strong enough to poison a whole lake let alone all the rivers connected to it. "

Bree begins filing all of my nails into shapes so perfect you might find outlines of them in a trigonometry problem. "Watching the re-caps was fun, too, seeing how they all shriveled up and just sort of cried. One big boy just kept running around yelling 'Wha happe,' as all of his teeth—and eventually his tongue—fell out before he died."

Cynthia gives a long titter accompanied by the groan of a fan starting. "It was delightful!"

"Lovely." My is sarcasm as thick and hot as the goop on my face.

The neon-Amazon Cynthia wields the hair-dryer like a weapon. With a click she turns it on, and its hot-air pushes my cheeks back with its force. Soon my hair is a tangle of dry strands instead of wet.

Cynthia has about three brushes in her hands, and each one pulls my head in a different direction. "I'm almost sad I was turned before the Morphing Games started. I'm sure I would have done something clever, too. Maybe use giant magnets to pull out all the iron from their blood, causing it to rip through their skin."

Clouds of flowery scented mist envelope me as Cynthia sprays me with something to make my hair shine. I see in her reflection in the mirror that her nose wrinkles from the smell.

"Then I would be able to drink from all of them without that yucky iron after-taste. Gross."

"Everyone knows the bodies of the dead Prospectives get auctioned off to the highest bidder, Cynth, so you wouldn't get to drink it." Bree files my toenails with a clam efficiency, not even looking up as she rattles of the sickening facts—like it's gossip. "'Sides, a magnet that would be powerful enough to take the iron out of their blood would be powerful enough to reverse the poles."

God, it's just too much. These stylists sit here calmly talking about horrible deaths, deaths that could be my horrible death, that could have been Emily's. I wonder if they'll buy my body if I die. Will they sit here drinking me from bottles as they talk about how Cynthia just should have gotten the opportunity to be in the Morphing Games because she would never have let her insides be torn out by a giant magnet?

Bree mistakes my disgust for impatience. "Just a few more seconds and you'll get to meet Esme, Bella-Boop."

"Esme?" What more can they do me, what else can be left? I haven't even entered the arena, and I want to give up.

Bree says, "she's your stylist, silly."

My brow furrows. "I thought you were my stylist."

Cynthia sighs, as if thinking about a vid-star. "No, no, no! We're just the prep team. We can only aspire to the level of genius of Esme Cullen."

"You think they'd let us handle a tribute all by ourselves?" Bre barrels onward at close to vampire speed before I can answer. "Of course not. We're just the sous-chefs if you will, and Esme Cullen is like the waiter."

I would correct their metaphor, but I'm too curious about Esme. "Oh yes, Edward told me all about her." I offer this lamely, trying to seem as if I do have a clue— or if not a clue then maybe at least a hint.

Simultaneously, both stop their bustling.

"Did you say 'Edward?'" asks Cynthia.

Shit. Was I not supposed to mention his name? No, that wasn't something he had told me last night.

"No." I hedge. If they seem surprised by the fact that I'm associated with Edward, so perhaps it's better that they don't know. Maybe he has a rebellious reputation already.

"Of course she didn't say 'Edward.'" Bree glares at Cynthia. "Sometimes you're as dumb as a bad-hairdo."  
>"Who's Edward?" I ask, playing pitch perfectly the part of the naïve Prospective Edward seemed to think I was.<p>

Cynthia gives a little twitter. "Right, I forgot they leave him out of the history books. You know, honestly, I don't think I learned about him until recently—and I was here for the change."

She lowers her voice, as if that could stop her from being picked up by the bugs, which are surely listening in. "Apparently, he used to be one of the founders."

"But there are only three founders," I say. I know it makes me sound stupid, but it's best for them to think that's all I am. I consider the possibility that Edward was in fact a ripped out chapter from the history books. He had said he had made mistakes. Not to mention that if he was telling the truth, he had chosen me, which meant he circumvented very old and established laws. Then again, these are just stylists, and not even head stylists at that.

"Cynth, remember what Esme said about us focusing. Let's just finish it." Bree's tone makes it clear that "us" really means "Cynthia."

"No, we have to put something of our own on the look." Cynthia talks so fast I almost don't understand it. "We have to show her our genius."

Their genius, as I can see in the mirror, is a small pink butterfly clip with wings that flap slowly. I think it's getting glitter in my hair, but I nearly fail to notice it, because I'm caught staring at the reflection of a girl who's almost pretty. I think she's me; she's certainly glaring like I do.

Now my brown hair is darker, almost the color of my mahogany eyebrows, my skin has lost it's pallor, and my lips seem fuller. Everything about me feels smooth. I run my finger-tips over my eyebrows, tracing the strange new arch of them and then my nose, which now rests right in the center of my face. It doesn't hurt anymore, either.

"I know—huge-mungo transformation, right? You almost look like Belle instead of the Beast—no offense of course," says Bree.

I want to tell them that talking about drinking the blood of humans and buying corpses is more offensive to me than insulting my hairstyle, but I know that no matter how "respected" Prospectives are by people back home, our position in the Volterra is tenuous. I want to tell them that just because it's the way things are doesn't they mean they can talk about it like it's gossip.

People are going to die.

One them will probably be me.

"Esme should be in shortly!" Cynthia grabs a puffy bubble gum colored coat to put over her dress.

How does Esme know we're done? Could she smell the transformation or something? Before I can ask, the pair of them are out of the door, travelling at vampire speed, having no need to slow themselves for my human eyes.

It's not long until I hear a gentle clap from the other end of the room. The door slides open. I don't know what I expected, perhaps a badly-dressed blur to come up to me and start poking and prodding?  
>Instead, comes a woman dressed in a poofy skirt with a waist no bigger than my fist. Unlike the leopard and the plant, there is nothing revealing about her outfit. The neckline barely reveals the delicate bowing of her shoulder blades, and below the skirt are opaque ivory tights.<p>

She walks slowly, her skirt so voluminous that it swooshes behind her with each small step. She stops a few paces away before tentatively raising a hand and giving a short elegant wave. "Hello."

I lean back into the head-rest of the chair. "Uh, hello."

"I'm Esme." She takes a step closer, her eyes focused calmly on me. It's a very different gaze from Edward's; I don't feel as if I'm being evaluated, but acknowledged instead. "I assume Edward told you about me."

Is she actually concerned for my personal space? I let out a sigh, and I'm relieved—until her eyes begin to squint in annoyance. "May I touch your hair, Bella?"

"Sure." I offer hesitantly.

Her hands fish around in my newly volumized hair until they pluck out the butterfly. Its wings slow and I could swear it turns its mechanical head and looks bashfully at Esme with its cheap rhinestone eyes.

"Hello there, little one," She whispers.

Delicately, she brushes some of the glitter off its wings, and it follows suit shaking off its wings until they're clean. What's left is small and reflective, appearing to be made out of the same substance as the balloon.

She gives a rich laugh, and it's the most human sound I've heard from a vampire. I didn't know vampires could even do that: smile and laugh in a way that doesn't seem foreboding and wrong.

Then I'm laughing, too, because the little butterfly is trying to flap it's wings away from Esme, who looks at it like it's an untied-shoe.

My laughs turn to thick guffaws, seizures of hilarity. It's not really that funny, but if I didn't do something I was going to explode. I can't afford to burst into tears. Not in front of my stylist, a woman whose faith in me will determine whether or not I get a good concept design for my outfit. A woman who was an affiliate of Edwards wasn't someone I wanted to upset, if Edward's temper was any indication.

"If you don't stop laughing, you're going to fall down." Esme warns, voice tinged with authentic concern.

Still, I can't stop, and I literally manage to fall out of the salon chair—laughing. Esme catches me, and deposits me with infinite grace back into the chair.

"That's a pretty accurate reading you had there," I say.

"Oh." Her voice is light like summer breezes through summer leaves. "Just womanly intuition."

She touches my hair, stroking it lightly, and it feels embarrassingly good. I'm a little disappointed when she stops and takes out a brush and begins to part my hair absentmindedly. "I'm sorry about my assistants. To say they don't quite know how to act around humans would be an understatement. It's hard living here. One forgets what it's like to be human. To be able to die."

I flinch.

No, what's hard is losing your mother.

What's hard is trying to decide whether to kill yourself or an innocent.

What's hard is knowing that in the end you might not even get the luxury of the choice.

"Come, let's get lunch before you fall out of that chair again." She offers me a hand.  
>I take it and we walk at normal speed, thankfully, to a small antechamber that holds a small table and two chairs. Sitting on the table is a white plate filled with rice and covered with strips of grilled chicken and a steaming red sauce<p>

At the center of the table is a centerpiece made of three pink flowers and one white. Surreptitiously, I glance toward Esme. It matches her dress perfectly.

More real food. I can hardly believe it. I'm so skeptical, in fact, I hang back.

"Please sit down, Bella," Esme says, "I promise it's not going to run away."

"Can you read minds, too?" I ask as I tuck my chair in and pick up my fork.

She joins me. "No, that's the domain of my son."

"Son?" I scoot my chair into the table. "I thought vampires couldn't have children?"

Esme's expression clouds. "I never got the privilege of having children as a human. So I . . . adopted Edward."

"Edward?" The man who looked into my soul, if you say I had something like that, and dissected and then rebuilt me to fit his parameters. It was hard to believe a creature like him having a mother, it made him seem so human.

She nods. "Yes, there's a reason why I'm your stylist. Much like Edward, usually I prefer not to involve myself in the Games directly."

If it wasn't crazy I'd say she said Games with almost as much as disdain—and maybe even despair—as I do when I think it.

Mention of her son reminds me of my family. I wonder what Ben's doing. He's probably with Prim. It's a good thing she's there, maybe she can take care of Charlie, too. Someone will have to, without me there. I don't think Ben ever realized how much I did for them. I think my attack on him after Mom died blinded him to a lot more than just the world around him.

And it was all because of the vampires.

"I don't blame you."

"What?" I am shaken out of my reverie to see Esme's small mouth pursed slightly.

"For hating us."

"I don't. Vampires shoulder the burden that humanity can't." I rattle off quickly. Have I been that transparent? Edward is going to kill me—literally. He doesn't seem like the type to renege on death threats.

"Bella, I'm not going to get angry at you for the way you feel, let alone report you."

"I don't know what you're talking about." I can't take the chance that this is a trap.

There are stories of Prospectives' families being hurt when they tried to escape as well as stories of Prospectives committing suicide before the games. If I were to be reported for treason, what if they tried to get to Ben or, even worse, Jacob? Also, I'm sure Edward would make my own death long and unpleasant.

She gives a frustrated sigh, but then smiles warmly. As she shakes her head her pearl earrings jangle. "If I didn't know that you are going to trust me eventually, I'd imagine this conversation would be much more frustrating."

I shrug. Even if she's right about me trusting her, which seems very unlikely, she also could just be saying this to get a confession. I try to keep my eyes wide and innocent. "Sorry, I don't quite know what you're talking about."

"Oh, Bella, what has been done to you?" She reaches out a hand, and suddenly her eyes seem so old.

I have to change the topic. "What are you thinking of for the concept?"

For the opening parade every district usually dresses in a costume relating to the industry that their district comes from. For us in District 2, it meant some skimpy parody of a Peacekeepers uniform. A couple of years ago there had been an experimental stylist who dressed the Prospectives in yellow unitards and said they were the color of justice. That didn't go over well. I hope Esme has something better planned for me.

Her sense of fashion isn't deplorable like the prep team's, but it looks like something from the history books of the time before. I hope she puts me in something a little less girlish. I'm going to be entering an arena to fight for my life, not attending a party.

"I have an idea for what to wear, but you'll have to tell me if you like it." She smiles, leaning forward. "District 2 produces peacekeepers—protectors of the peace. Well I wondered, what if we connect your outfit to a fairy tale?"

I must look confused because she backtracks.

"You know how you volunteered for that little girl? Many people were impressed by that." She looks down at the centerpiece thoughtfully. "Myself included. They—we saw you as a hero, brave and self-sacrificing."

"I'm not a hero." I can never be a hero, not after what I did to my brother, not even if I do save the world. Edward made that painfully clear. I may be able to be good, but I will never be pure again. The world doesn't work like that; people don't forget the bad stuff you do just because you do something good, and even if they do, you don't.

Esme shoots me a look both kind and admonishing, and I quiet because I know that look; my mother used to give it to me. "You were like something out of a fairy tale up on that stage, like a knight going out on a quest to save a maiden. So why not make you a knight?"

"But aren't knights supposed to be boys?" This is not my real objection. My real objection is that I am not a knight, not a good guy. I'm pretty sure that to most everyone in my life, I'm the villain.

She gives a small, bitter laugh. "A hundred thirty years go by, I lose my husband and I still haven't escaped sexism."

"What?"

"You'll look perfect in this costume, Bella. Just trust me."

And the odd thing is, I do.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. I will not look like a fool, that's good. "What's Jasper wearing?"

Usually partners coordinate, but he's not here, so I'm not sure he'll be getting the same costume.

She frowns. "I can see that he's decided not to coordinate with you." She looks over at me hesitantly, deciding whether or not to mention something. "He doesn't see you as someone to reckoned with . . . at least not yet."

I grit my teeth. Hale thought he was better than me with his fancy training and brave façade, but he didn't know the truth; everything he had gotten: all of his bravado, his house, his life—it was stolen from me.

"I want a big sword," I say.

Esme grins. "I knew you would agree, Bella."

Jasper Hale had better watch out, because in the arena I'm going to take back what he stole.


	12. 11

**Authors Note: **

**Huge thanks to Someone Aka Me and Her Mighty Ubergeekness (aka Hermione Granger) who edit this sucker to make it readable and my pre-reader xconfessedx (Emily).**

**For technical reasons this story will no longer be posted on Twilighted (the formatting is a pain), so if you find yourself looking for it there, I apologize. Here and the blog is the only place you'll be able to find the new updates; I'll leave the chapters that I have there, but I won't be posting new ones there anymore. Just fyi**

**Second order of business, I have updated the blog, so please do check it out; it's got a new trailer, chapters with authors commentary, a visual glossary, and an FAQ. If you find yourself getting lost, this is the place to check. The link is on my profile. **

**Third order of business, voting for the Twilight Post Secret Contest is up, my entry is there, go and vote for your favorite! **

**P.S**  
><strong>Also (and I don't usually do this), but I'm enjoying her fic so much and she has done so much for me, so go read HerMightyUbergeekness's The Walls of Dreaming-it's a really fun take on a NM AU, and deserves a lot more reviews than it has.<strong>

**I think that's all. If I missed anything let me know. **

**Oh-and guys?**

**Get ready for the biggest twist of your lives. **

[11]

I've only ever seen the parade on television, and that's not really seeing it. On TV it's all highly edited, a successive series of quick cuts to create story and enhance tension. There are even two separate broadcasts of the Morphing Games—one for the humans and one for the vampires. The vampire broadcast has an announcer speaking at speeds no human could understand, a backtrack of atonal music and references to languages not spoken by humans anymore.

Those things led me to believe that vampires were all sophisticated killers, but after meeting Bree and Cynthia I'm revising my original thought: they're just killers. Becoming a vampire doesn't automatically make you debonair. Even Tanya, with all of her darlings, is jealous of Rosalie's beauty. In some ways, vampires aren't what I expected at all.

The person I am most surprised by is also the person who best fits the archetype of what I thought a vampire should be: Edward. A rebel whose motivation isn't just hatred of the government, but his own mistakes. He's a creature like me, but utterly inhuman. Esme played at humanity, but he, with his cryptic questions and piercing gaze, doesn't even pretend.

The memory of Edward is so strong that I'm surprised when I'm jolted at the shoulder by a petite girl with jet-black hair, her body lined in a skin-tight suite lined with tiny lightbulbs. She darts away from me before I can apologize.

The procession is an imitation of classic human parades, with each district getting their own moving platform, outfitted in whatever theme they're portraying.

I was dressed by Esme in my armor, which while beautiful and sturdy—expecting it to crumple, I bruise my wrist after punching it—is also incredibly light. I'm able to easily maneuver inside the herd of floats that have congregated in the underground chamber waiting to get out.

Because the districts go out in order, Jasper and I are near the front of the line. So I have to maneuver through the rest of the floats before I reach mine. Unconsciously, I look for the small girl from District 6 with the red curls. I don't find her, though I do see the District 6 float. It's hard to miss; it's blood-red, with metal chains of silver double-helixes surrounding it. District 6 is known for their experiments with genetics. I can't imagine a twelve-year-old standing on it; it looks like a torture chamber. I don't look at it long.

Next, I pass the District 3 float, which is a blinking imitation of a computer chip, housing a petite girl and a small boy. They almost blend into the float in their black jumpsuits decorated with tiny, blinking LEDs. On closer examination, I notice the same girl who bumped me in the shoulder is standing impatiently, shifting from foot to foot. She meets my appraisal with the curiosity of a little bird, and I can see scrappy fear in her eyes. I turn around to find out what's so frightening, but then I realize it's me. She's afraid of me.

I don't know how I feel about that, so I soldier on through the crowd to our float. Our float is an idyllic depiction of a fairy-tale forest, which has nothing really to do with the urban sprawl of District 2, but who wants to see graffiti and sewers? Jasper stands on it, dressed in a simple black robe. I narrow my eyes, trying to discern the crest stitched below the collar. That can't be what I think it is.

I hoist myself onto the float by grabbing the synthetic root of the one of the giant oaks. Our float is definitely the tallest, that's for sure. Once up on the float, I allow my disbelief to show. The crest below his collar is the same ones the Volturi guard wear. It's the crest of the Volterran Empire, and no one but the Volturi gaurd are allowed to wear it.

Let him see a little hatred, know that I disdain him just as much as he apparently disdains me. "Those are some morbid pajamas."

He smiles that damn charming smile, as if I meant my comment sincerely. "My stylist and I decided that it would be best to deviate from tradition and not represent where I come from, but where I hope to be going."

"The Volturi Gaurd?"

In front of us the District 1 float, an imitation of a giant diamond, lurches unsteadily forward.

"Where else?" He speaks as if this is the most plausible destination for a Prospective, when most of us actually end up in coffins, veins collapsed, drained of blood.

He must notice my somber mood because he smiles teasingly. "And what are you, a robot?" He pushes me lightly in the arm in what's supposed to be a playful gesture, but I can smell trademark Hale scorn in his breath.

I toss my hair behind me as I stomp forward. I want the crowd to see me first. "I'm a knight."

I'm angry at his insult to Esme's costume. It's not until I feel the anger that I realize that, unlike everyone else I've met so far associated with the Morphing Games, I actually like Esme in a way that isn't tinged with terror.

Not too far away, I can hear the screams of the crowd applauding for District 1. I'm sure the Prospectives look even more beautiful in person than they do on TV. They have to in order to pull off ridiculous names like Aston Martin and Volvina.

We begin to move slowly forward, too, and I grab a tree branch for balance. Jasper, of course has no problem keeping his footing.

"Aren't you worried about offending President Aro?" I gesture lamely to the robes. "Technically, to put the crest on anything not state-made is illegal."

"The only way to stay alive is to be constantly on the offensive." He shrugs. "I guess we'll see how successful I am." We've moved almost all the way into the light now, only four more seconds and millions of eyes will be trained on us, and about half that many cameras.

"You know, you don't talk like you're a kid, but you're only what, sixteen?" I ask.

"You can't come here if you're a kid."

"You can this year." I correct, trying not to sound too bitter about it. Even a statement of the facts can get you in trouble. If you're not careful, facts can be some of the most dangerous things out there.

He looks like he's about to say something, but all hints of introspection disappear once we pass through the awning and into the light of the street. Immediately, he turns to the crowd of vampires, and begins a measured wave. I move my hand, too, but it doesn't have nearly the same effect on the crowd.

Up close, it's hard to see howJasper Hale's wave is different from mine, but it gets twice the reaction. In frustration, I draw my sword and thrust it upward lamely, which draws some attention, but not a lot.

The truth is, I'm not really focused on the float or the games or even Jasper. I can't take my eyes off the crowd. They sparkle, not subtly, but sending full blown refractory shards of light everywhere. With all of the vampires about I almost have to close my eyes. I wish I had sunglasses, but what knight wears sunglasses?

Quicker than I would have thought, we arrive at the main square of Volterra. It's furbished in all white limestone and glinting copper, much like the Blood Bank. The smooth whirring of the wheels changes into a click-clack as the road underneath us turns from pavement to bricks.

In the center, there is a tall podium with a large screen above it. For the first time, I can see myself on camera and I'm surprised by how dashing I look. Esme has given volume to my normally limp hair, and pieces of the armor frame my face nicely. Realizing that this perhaps the one chance to get the camera's attention before it undoubtedly rests on Jasper, I give my sword a long swipe through the air.  
>I don't know what makes me do it, because the moment after the words leave my mouth I realize how stupid they are, but with my sword up in the air, I yell, "For Emily."<p>

I didn't think the crowd could hear me over the sound of their chatter and clapping, but of course, having super hearing, they do. All eyes turn on me, and for a second I'm worried that they're going to rush onto the float and tear me limb from limb.

Instead, they start clapping even louder. Next to me Jasper does nothing so bold as to grit his teeth to show his annoyance, but his waving slows a little.

Somewhere from the back someone has figured out the my name and has started a chant, "Swan! Swan! Swan!" One of the people out there chanting my name has to have enough money to be a sponsor.

Knots in in my muscles loosen, tension letting up at the idea of sponsors, but the tension doesn't dissipate completely. If any of the other competitors are as serious as Jasper about an offensive strategy, I don't stand a chance, because when it comes down to it, I'm not sure if I can kill. Oh, I mean, I know I have the ability, but I haven't gotten in a serious physical fight with anyone since I hurt my brother.

Edward would've been certain to get me sponsors, but once he figures out that I'm not following his plan I'm sure he'll retract all help. At least once I'm in the arena he won't be able to touch me or persuade me. It's a hard and fast rule that no one but the tributes are allowed in the arena.

All this adoration makes me sick. Even if I did volunteer, that doesn't make me some kind of white knight, even if Esme dresses me up in armor, because what I volunteered to do isn't go on a quest to fight a dragon or rescue a princess. No, I volunteered to kill people, to kill children.

If they knew that I wasn't going to kill children, well they wouldn't be cheering. They'd probably be trying me for treason.

As the other floats come the fervor dies down until finally President Aro takes the stage. He's dressed in black robes much like Jasper's, but if he sees the similarity he doesn't acknowledge it.

Aro's speech seems to go on for a long time; it's littered with words so long I don't understand them. Once or twice he slips into another language, one with trilled r's and a rising and falling cadence. The crowd understands it, but it makes no sense to me.

Normally once his speech finishes, each pair is led through a small, roped off area to the mansion on the right side of the square: the Prospective Palace. But after the applause Aro holds up a hand, which from where I'm standing, looks no bigger than a pale dot. "Citizens and future citizen!"

The fact that he doesn't use the plural for future citizen makes me twitch. It's just another reminder that only one of us will end up here in Volterra.

"This is no ordinary Morphing Games. As you all know, it's the 100th anniversary of our now beloved pastime."

The crowd shifts-expectant, almost uneasy. For the first time it occurs to me maybe there are other vampires like Edward and Esme, those who aren't happy with the way things are, let alone the fact that now children are going to lose their lives.

"As has been revealed to you, we've brought innocence into the hallowed streets of Volterra. Brought hope. Perhaps in response to that hope, or perhaps because he simply is a man of whimsy who I will never fully understand, my good friend has returned as well. Let us all welcome Edward Cullen!"

And there is Edward Cullen, as if he has never been anywhere else, standing ramrod straight next to President Aro. Not acknowledging the crowd or anyone- not even me. The smooth lines of his dark Volturi robes contrast with the untamed mess on his head. Even from so far away, when I see him, I swallow to moisten my suddenly dry throat.

Whispers undercut the applause, only from the vampires though. None of the Prospectives, except for Jasper and me, have a clue who Edward is. I imagine Jasper's probably angry that I have a mentor who's close with the President.

Good. Angry people are people out of control, and as Edward demonstrated—I find a disturbing amount of my thoughts being about him—power is nothing without control.

Except when I look at Jasper, he's smirking, too.

"There's a story I don't think many of you here know about Edward-—" Aro begins in the measured storyteller's cadence all Volterran politicians seem to use "—certainly our darling Prospectives don't." The way Aro says "darling" it becomes clear to me where the origins of Volterran slang come from.

"I hope you don't mind if I share it, Edward?" Aro doesn't even glance at Edward as he asks. "We have no secrets here, do we?"

President Aro's gaze, even from far away, finds mine. I'm sure everyone feels like that. At least, that's what I tell myself to keep from screaming at the way his beady crimson eyes bore into me.

"Once, long ago, before the Volterran Empire existed in its present form, I had a friend who was distinctive. He didn't drink human blood. In fact, he watched and guarded over their frailty, and lived among them with a boy he called son. They came to me across the oceans and the sands to tell me of the tragedy in this continent, of the horrors we now know as the Time of Excess. The days of a thousand floods, a hundred earthquakes, and that one most deadly eruption."

At this point, I'm distracted by a fact that I didn't notice until recently, so focused was I on Edward and Aro. Behind Aro stands Rosalie. This was why Jasper was smirking. Edward is not the only one close to President Aro, but how can Rosalie already be in the upper ranks? She only won last year. More importantly, are Rosalie and Edward associates, is Rosalie a part of the cause? The cause I'm only half-committed to.

"I had been living so long in selfishness and here were two beings who saw immortality for what it really was: an opportunity to help save humanity from itself." Aro turns slightly, as if to smile at Edward, but it's hard for me to discern details from so far away.

"I can testify with confidence that all of Volterra mourned the day Carlisle Cullen was thoughtlessly murdered by a newborn. Five recently turned humans struck out against a man only trying to help them. Of course, we had long known something had to be done about the newborn problem, but none of us quite understood the severity of the issue, let alone how to go about fixing it."

None of the crowd seems surprised by this story, so maybe most of them knew about Edward Cullen while only the lowlies like Cynthia and Bree were oblivious.

I'm not sure how I feel. My eyes are glued to Edward, to his every motion. I don't know what I expect to see. Do I think he'll cry about the father that wasn't his father? Of course not. For a second his eyes meet mine.

At first, despite the fiery color, they are impassive, but then for just a moment-no longer-his brow furrows slightly. If it weren't completely insane, I would say he almost looks . . . apologetic.

"As the Morphing Games demonstrates, loss is the greatest teacher. After Carlisle moved forth from this plane toward the next, inspiration bequeathed to Edward her greatest gift: an idea." Aro brings up a hand in front of him, as if he could pluck an idea from inspiration's invisible grasp.

Edward's glare turns glacial once more before tearing away from me. I can't help but want him to look at me again. It's sick.

"Ah, Edward, how well grief taught him truth, for he came up with the most elegant solution to the newborn problem." Aro continues.

Even though Aro is speaking, I can't help but find myself unable to look away from Edward. There is something so noble about him. I can't label it or understand it, really. Maybe it's how square his shoulders are or how tall he stands. I'm so caught up in Edward that I almost miss the next words Aro says.

"What an elegant solution the Morphing Games were and what a brilliant man their founder: Edward Cullen."


	13. 12

**Authors Note:**

**Hey guys.**

**So...**

**I'm sorry for the long delay with this chapter, let's just say it went through extensive rewrites. I promise the upcoming chapters should come out on schedule. Thanks for reading! :)  
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[12]

Fuck.

I inhale.

He did this. Not President Aro, not anyone else—him. He's responsible for the game that was the catalyst for everything—my mother's death, my father's disappearance, my need to hurt other people. Not fully responsible, but responsible nonetheless.

There's only one thing that will be entirely his fault.

My death.

I'm angry, but I should be furious. Instead, below the smashing of my heart and the violent tensing of my muscles, there is some other feeling. A deep, crusted over wound that has been picked at and picked at for years has been ripped open so fast that for a second I don't feel anything at all.

A second can feel like forever but this one doesn't, and when it's over, the pain comes fast. It shoots through my veins like venom and scalds my internal organs with its heat.  
>For all that, I can't meet Edward's eyes. I should be glaring at him bravely. I should be hating him.<p>

But I'm not.

I'm looking down at my feet and the flowers thinking that the one man that's made me feel things I don't know how to name is the same man who has ruined my life. Just like everyone else, he's betra—

No.

I exhale.

There's nothing to betray. He told me so—I am the abyss. I can't be betrayed by him if I never trusted him, which I didn't. He's only being exactly what I expected. He's a monster; I always knew that, but I must not have always believed it, because some part of me feels like I'm standing outside my gutted-out house again, watching all my belongings get scooped out and tossed into the trash. Some part of me feels like I'm being discarded, too.

"Is everything alright, darling?" Jasper leans against a plastic oak, his face embellished by shadows from his half-drawn hood. "You look like you're going to decapitate the poor little flowers."

I look up at my right arm, in which I'm still holding the sword above the faux forget-me-nots. I bring it back to my side and glare at Jasper as if I'm about to decapitate him.

He doesn't so much as wince.

"Just bored," I spit out with finality. I don't care if the cameras air it later. I have to say something about what I just heard. Anyway, it won't be seen as offensive if I play the role of stoic tribute.

"You don't seem bored." He lazily kicks down the flowers with the toe of his boot, ambling toward me, a reckless smile tickling his lips. "You seem angry."

"You seem like an asshole." My grip tightens around the sword, but my eyes are still firmly focused on the float beneath my feet. The parade is over. We are returning to our lodgings and I . . . I can't even process this, let alone the fact that Jasper is moving closer still.

He smirks but it's too wide, and his eyes are glittering with a harsh, almost manic mirth. "Definitely angry." He turns out to the crowd and begins waving again, a continuous motion. "Which makes absolutely no sense—" he says out of the corner of his mouth, not looking at me "—since you just discovered you have a huge advantage. If I didn't know better, I would say you were glaring at your darling mentor."

As much as I hate to admit it, Jasper's right. There's no reason why I should appear to be angry that Edward came up with the concept of the Morphing Games-at least no reason without heretical undertones-but I'm having a little trouble thinking of an excuse at the moment.

"Shut up." My voice sounds empty as I walk back to the oak tree and lean against it, closing my eyes and trying to compose myself. There's this strange itching in my chest. If I was the kind of girl who cried I might think it was tears, but I haven't cried since the night I almost killed myself.

Below my feet the Astroturf grass flutters backwards as the float begins to move. Screams, discordant in their adulation, flood the air, so while there is silence between Jasper and I, no one would know it. I need to think, but my head's splitting from the sound of the crowd. The roar doesn't stop or change until we get to an immense iron gate.

The diamond float, glittering like the crowd, pauses in front of the gate before it swings open slowly. Once we're through the screaming stops, but in raggedy formations like packs of crows, the cameras float after us. We're not alone. Surrounded by people and monsters alike, but not a friend among them.

Beyond the gate lies an enormous cul de sac, lined with no fewer than twelve buildings, one for each district. Much like the floats, each of the buildings is supposedly done in the style of the District it houses. At the farthest end is District 1's mansion, taking up most of the space, and closest is a brick apartment, crumbling and covered with thorny vines, for District 12. Around the floats swarms of orderlies assist the Prospectives, bowing and politely helping us dismount as our float stops in front of a building that is thin as a needle and dark as the hidden side of the moon.

With mock gentleness, as if he could hurt them, Jasper grasps an orderly's hand and is led into the right entrance.

I don't want to be touched, much less by one of them, so I ignore the entreaties of the vampire at my side of the float and vault off. The light-as-air metal of my armor clanks as I hit the cobblestone, and shock shoots up through my knees. I school my face into blankness though, because I can feel the thousands of cameras' gazes on me, like oil slithering over my skin.

No one can know my thoughts. Hostility to Jasper can be explained; he is, after all, my competition, but too much anger to vampires could be seen as heretical. Not only could it jeopardize my life, but my family's as well.

I can't think about what I'd heard anymore, for fear that some trace will be left on my face like ash from a fire. A vampire moves to my side, arm offered. I don't take it but instead, with steps so even they're almost rhythmic, begin walking to the side door that Jasper entered.

"Thank you," I say, barely opening my jaw to speak. My gaze is focused intently on the spot where Jasper was. Whatever door he entered has disappeared into the polished, ebony surface of the building.

"Prospective Citizen Swan—" the vampire protests, stepping between the me and the building"—Miss Esme requires your presence in the other entrance."

"Esme?" I ask, stopping immediately, forcing myself to keep my motions choreographed. I'm not graceful, but making a good impression is key if I want sponsors, if I want to save the kids. Lacking of grace of any kind. I shake my head at the echo of Edward's thought. What he thinks doesn't matter. He is a coward who should have died for his mistakes.

Like you did? A snarky inner voice that very well may be my conscience retorts.

Like I will.

I will request a new mentor. One with no plans of revolutions, one who will train me in fighting and nothing more. One who makes me feel nothing. I will save whatever kids I can, and then I'll try to make my way out as painless as possible.

"Yes, Esme," the vampire says derisively. For all her addressing me by my official title, I can tell from her downturned lip that she thinks no better of me than the stylists do. "She's waiting for you in the Left Lobby of the District 2 building."

"Why? Shouldn't I be meeting with Tanya?" Anger and some other suppressed emotion has sharpened my focus and given fuel to my determination, so that even though I know that asking Esme for a new mentor will be a little more tricky than asking Tanya, I don't find it distracting.

The orderly's sneer bows into a frown, like a branch under a heavy weight, and she ignores my question, motioning me to follow her. Unlike Esme, she doesn't walk human speed but blurs over what seems to be just another unmarked part of the needle-skyscraper, about thirty paces away from me. As I follow her, I watch her press one of her spider-web delicate hands up to the building, which ripples slightly before parting, as if made of liquid.

I don't bother stopping my eyes from widening. It's good to appear impressed by the Capitol tech. With a bite of my lip I follow the orderly in.

I expect Esme to be inside when I enter, but all that greets the orderly and me is a claustrophobically tiny circular room. It's good I've spent so much time in the sewers; if I hadn't I'm sure I would be a little freaked out. As it is, I am disturbed by how close I am to the orderly. Her eyes are as red as her hair and the disdain on her face has morphed into frank hunger.

"I'll be leaving you to Esme now." She presses her hand to the wall she entered, and disappears again.

I wait a couple of seconds for Esme to appear from one of the walls, but she doesn't come. Seconds turn to minutes. There must have been some kind of mistake.

Aware of how foolish I look, I press my hand to the space on the wall where I think the orderly pressed, hoping it will open the door.

Nothing happens.

"Open," I command.

The only thing that changes is my heartbeat. I suck in a deep breath and try again.

"Door, open."

This is dumb, I know; the orderly hadn't had to whisper anything.

Just as I'm about to try one last time, the floor jerks underneath me, shudders once, and then the whole room begins to move. Not just move, but shoot upwards so fast I'm practically plastered to the floor. A percussive collection of clatters ring out as I hit the floor.

"Holy shit!"

My ears feel strangely stuffy, and the contents of my stomach have been jostled up almost to my throat. However, as soon as I register these feelings, the floor stops.

The moment it stops, the wall parts in front of me. I get up onto my knees, swallowing back the bile from the quick trip upward and, before going through the door, reach out a finger tip to the wall. It looks like black water, and I wonder if the consistency is the same. Is it cool or hot? How can it be a liquid one moment and a solid the next?

Just as the edge of my fingertip is about to make contact with the liquid-wall, a voice, gentle and feminine, rings out. "Perhaps that's not the best idea, Bella."

There, beyond the door is Esme, hands clasped at her waist. Her brown hair is, if possible, poofed out even further, flipped outward in warm, chestnut waves. Her dress is as brown as her hair, but when she moves it almost turns a different color, as if covered with a film of the dying breath of a sunset. Delicately, she grasps my hand at the wrist and pulls me through the opening.

Immediately after I'm through, the door-wall seals with a pllp. When I turn around, it looks as if nothing was even there in the first place.

"What was that?" I ask in disbelief. I feel shaken up enough that I forget that I'm supposed to be angry at her.

With a finger, tipped with nail polish the same odd dual-toned color as her dress, she beckons me forward, away from the wall. "VelocitySilver: the same thing that powers the Cloud Gate and the cameras."

I would ask her more, but as I follow her, looking around at where she's led me, I find the words stolen from me again.

Windows. We can't be here; we should be falling if we're this high up. This is impossible.

For all intents and purposes, it appears as if we are at the very point of the needle-shaped District 2 building. On every side of us there are windows, and what they look out on is enough to give me vertigo.

Volterra. It's laid out like a quilt of buildings, streets and even trees—in the far, far distance. I can't see all of Volterra though, because not all of the windows are clear; some of them are painted with scenes from past Games. On closer examination I notice that they are all depictions of District 2 victors.

There is Sibbohan, the redhead who won by pure brute force, killing all of her opponents on the very first day, during the bloodbath. Another window shows Demitri. He won the games the year I was born; I remember watching tapes of him in school over and over again. I learned everything I needed to about tracking from watching the tapes of him hunt down his own District partner and kill her.

"Bella, please drink something. You must be parched," Esme cajoles, her face haloed by the redlight of the stained glass window. Her words are as soft and hard to pin down as the light near her face or the color of her dress.

I turn to her and notice in her hand a clear cup of water.

I look at it and her with pure suspicion, the windows having brought me back to my senses. "No, thank you."

Her hand doesn't move, and when I look up into her eyes the only thing I can see in them is a reflection of myself. I take the cup, but don't sip at it.

I'm itching to stall, to ask about how the room is so high, to ask about the exact nature of VelocitySilver, or whatever. It's this desire that convinces me that I have to ask her about Edward now.

The water sloshes, rippling out to the edge of the cup and then back in on itself. My hand is shaking. In a single gulp I down the whole glass. My hand still shakes, but at least there is no evidence of it with the water now gone.

"I'd like to have—"

Esme holds up a hand, and with odd fascination I noticed it's gloved, white silk. It matches her pearls. "Before anything you need to take a bath, if you please."

I don't please, but I don't say so. Maybe it's because her eyes aren't two colors like her dress, they're one: red. Stoplight bright.

"You're hot," Esme says, "and you've had a long day. I think it would be best if you bathed."

"Where?" All I see is a circular room lined with windows on every side. There is no bathtub or furniture of any kind. "And where's Tanya anyway?" I'll need Tanya if I'm going to switch mentors. Not that I trust her either, but at least she doesn't make me want to trust her.

If my aim was to frustrate Esme, I'd failed. If anything, she gives a calm smile and retracts her gloved hand with a slow elegance I will never be able to match. "Tanya is no longer your liaison."

She turns her back to me, and takes a few steps forward. With each step her white heel sinks slightly into the carpet.

"Who is then?"

A flash of white and a flutter of finger tips and Esme has touched the lone scrap of wall not covered with windows—or is it a wall? On closer examination I can't tell if it's just more VelocitySilver.

A door, or rather, an opening materializes where her hand touches. Beyond it I see black marble, sinks, an ivory tub, and what looks to be another window.

From behind Esme I watch her shoulders rise just slightly, and I swear there's another color in her dress that I didn't even notice before. Green, maybe.

"I am your Liaison, Bella," Esme says.

"How?"

At this she frowns. "There are advantages to having Edward as your mentor." Her frown smooths over, like a child un-creasing aluminum with a quarter as she runs a fingertip along the edge of the doorway. "As you've found out, he has significant political clout."

"I meant to talk to you about that." The moment I speak the words they vibrate oddly through my teeth, making me cringe. "I can't work with Edward."

"Bathe—" Her nose scrunches slightly. "—then we'll talk."

I shift in my armor. It does itch and I am eager to be out of it, but somehow that feels like committing. I already accepted the water from her; if I take a bath here how much more beholden will I be?

And yet, another part of me wants nothing more than to see Edward again. Want is actually an understatement. Something is gnawing at me. A parasite, a blood-sucker of an emotion, has latched onto my heart and is burrowing deep, deep down.

I wonder if it will kill me. Or worse, I wonder if it will save me, and make me kill others in order to survive and keep it alive as its host. How many of my neurons has it wrapped itself up in already?

I don't want to know.

Maybe that's why I head through the bath, because I'd rather not think about why I can't seem to force the point that I can't have Edward as my mentor any longer, that I can't be taught by someone that is evil.

It's funny, people always say the scariest thing is what we don't know. I don't think that's true. I think the scariest things are the things we choose not to know; the things we don't want to.

I'm halfway through the doorway when Esme stops me with a touch. It's soft, but cold against the inside of my wrist where the armor doesn't cover. "Don't look at the window, Bella."

"Which one?" I motion to the dozens of windows surrounding us.

"The one in the bathroom. I see you looking at it and being disturbed." For the first time her face softens, and her stylized elegance softens to something if not human than at least kind. Kind and old, and very, very tired. "I also see me telling you not to, and apparently you don't listen, so I don't know why I even bother with the warning."

She lets my wrist go, and before I can agree or disagree, with a wave of her hand the wall closes up behind me.

Once the tub is halfway full, which takes no time at all as the water gushes steadily, I step into it. Unfortunately, I didn't expect the tub to be as deep as it is, and my toes slip against the porcelain, sending me flying backward with a splash.

When I emerge, spluttering, I'm staring right at the stained glass window. What I see makes me want to duck my head back in the water and never come up again.

A nude man. The man stained in glass looks familiar, with sleek perfect abs, v-muscles that point down between his legs where I do not look, a solid jaw and messy, russet hair. His eyes are narrow, cold, triumphant and so inhuman. There is something in his eyes I noticed before yet could never describe, but the words come now. It sounds dumb but there's no other word for it but magic. A wicked magic.

Edward Cullen.

I am so utterly captivated by him that I almost don't notice the bottom of the picture. I almost spend the next five minutes just staring into his eyes, pretending that he's looking at me, seeing me.

Before my peripheral vision alerts me to the rest of the picture I can almost feel his muscles, as if his arms are encircling me as he whispers in my ear. "I know you." His hands, cold and strong, would cup the small of my back. "I know you, and you are good."

The thing around my heart, the parasite-feeling, it clenches and squeezes until I'm almost out of breath.

But I'm a soldier. I've trained to not miss details; that's where the devil lies after all.

Edward isn't the only one in the picture.

There are other figures in the stained glass window, twenty three details I can't afford to miss. Unlike Edward, they aren't nude and victorious. They're dying.

Some of them are pressed underneath his feet, throats slit, while others reside near the bottom of the frame, belly-up. One grasps onto Edward's knee like a child begging its mother, blood trickling down from her chin from her slit throat. Soon, in less than a week, I will be one of those- either the corpse or a killer.

Except for they have thing I won't: they all have red-eyes and the wild look I remember from grainy photographs in my textbook. Newborns.

Below the window there is an inscription on the dark stone. "The Battle of Forks."

"Oh my god. Oh my god." I chant under my breath.

It's one thing to think Edward's a murderer. It's another to see it. "God," I repeat again, dumbly. Hoping somehow that will make the window in front of me disappear.

Without even taking a deep breath, I plunge my head underwater. The pressure from the water against my chest feels good. In a stream of bubbles, I let all the air out of my lungs, and sink to the bottom of the deep tub.

I've seen videos of people dying. Why should this window disturb me? Why should anything disturb me anymore?

The silence of being underwater allows me to think, even if I don't really want the answers to the questions jostling in my brain. My hair, floating above my head, tickles my nose. I open my eyes, and I'm greeted with the blurry darkness of the tub.

But even down here where I can't breathe, I can't escape thoughts of him.

Knowing that he's killed people, seeing it depicted like that, for some reason it feels different than watching the Games on T.V. Even when Rosalie was a Prospective, I wasn't disturbed watching her kill people.

I'm running out of breath and time. I still don't have any answers, and the moment I surface I'll be faced with that picture again.

My lungs feel convex and cold, but when I think of Edward I feel feverish and hot.

I can't deal with this. I have to run away somehow. I have to get a new mentor, I can't let Esme dissuade me any longer.

With this thought, I surface from the water and take in fistfulls of air in deep, to-the-bottom-of-my-lungs breaths.

When I get out of the tub, my old clothes are gone. Esme must have taken them and replaced them with a loose red silk dress with billowing sleeves and a thin golden sash. It's not my training clothes, but I don't care—I just want to get away from the window.

"That was quick," says Esme as I emerge from the bathroom. She sees the expression on my face and sighs. "You saw the window, didn't you."

"I slipped," I say in a small voice. I've left the bathtub far behind, but I still feel like I'm underwater. Like I can't breathe.

Even though I've spoken with no emotion, Esme's face is marred by preoccupied worry, her lips falling from their constant half-smile. "That's how it usually works with my gift. I warn you not to look at the window and that makes you too hasty, so then you slip and look at it anyway."

She takes my hand and leads me to the far side of the room, which has since been divided into partitions with semi-transparent papery walls. There is a small table laden with, as usual, a seemingly infinite variety of cuisines. I look around for a bottle of blood, wondering if Esme is going to "eat" at the table as well. I hope she won't.

"Eat, Bella," she commands gently as she pulls out her chair in a delicate but quick motion and sits down in it, legs crossed at the ankles. "You need your strength."

I don't respond, but stare at her without really looking at her, my eyes unfocused. Now or never. If I sit down at that table, it will only be harder to have the conversation. "I need you to tell me that I don't have to work with your son."

She begins ladling some rice onto the plate across from her. My plate of course. "I can't tell you that, but please-" she flashes an enigmatic smile "-sit down, and tell me why I should."

I wish that I could explain the real cause of my discomfort, but I know we're bugged. This is what kills me, I want to tell her why I can't work with Edward, but to say that I have a problem with the Morphing Games would be treason.

So I lie. "He can't be my mentor, because, er, I have a crush on him." I'm a much better liar than I remember. It comes out just as softly and embarrassed-sounding as if it were true. But it's not. Just because I feel certain ways when he's around doesn't mean it's a crush. It's only a crush if I acknowledge it as a crush. Which you just did, smartass.

Esme doesn't stop ladling rice onto my plate. "Oh?"

"Yes," I say resolutely. "It's a conflict of interest. I can't focus on my work when he's around."

Reluctantly, I pull out my chair and sit down. The steam from the rice is warm as it wafts up to my bottom lip and tickles it. Hunger and embarrassment war.

Hunger wins.

Which makes sense: Hunger's not the kind of feeling you want to play games with.

"I think that's enough rice, thanks," I say between the spoonfuls of rice she'd put on my plate.

Esme smothers a chuckle and takes out a bottle. I wince at the appearance of it, remembering Tanya's blood stained teeth.

"You're not going to drink are you?"

Her nose wrinkles as if I've just mentioned something truly distasteful. "No, of course not."

I swallow the rice in my mouth. It's been a while since I've had real food so table manners are a relic of the days when I still had a mother to chide me about them. I look at Esme through the side of my eyes, but her own gaze is focused on topping off the glass, not on my speaking with my mouthful.

"Here," she says, and hands me the thin-stemmed crystal glass.

I take it, looking at the bubbly liquid inside of it skeptically, before taking a tiny sip of it. When I do, I almost spit it back out. It's bitter, and makes my sinuses feel clearer with it's sharpness. I decide immediately that I like it. Sure, it's not what I expected, but its oddness fits my uncertain mood, and once the first shocking taste dies down it has a pleasant, almost fruity after-taste.

The next sip I take is more like a gulp, and it slides down my esophagus with ease before settling in my belly warmly. Funny-for tasting so jagged, it makes me feel smooth.

"So-" Esme begins, putting a cork in the bottle "-you say you have a crush on my son, but how would finding another mentor help? All vampires are beautiful. The distraction would be the same for any male vampire."

"No," I say heatedly. "It wouldn't."

There's something strange about the expression Esme's giving me, as if she doesn't believe the words she's saying. I get the feeling she's just playing devil's advocate. But if she does believe me then, why won't she agree with me? Is it not possible to change mentors—I hadn't even thought of that. What if she's seen something?

I take another sip from the glass until it's almost half-empty. Maybe that will calm me down.

"Why wouldn't it?" Esme prods, tone still inscrutable.

My limbs feel loose, and the soil of my thoughts upturned and fresh. "Because I feel like he knows me. I feel like I know him. And when I'm around him it doesn't matter what he's done, I'm drawn to him. I feel like he has a part of me and I don't know how he got it, but it's there. And it makes me nervous . . . "

I trail off, realizing that I've leaned forward and gesticulated so wildly with the glass that the beverage has spilled onto the table. With the heel of my hand I wipe it off, and in the reflection on the black table I can see the blurry outline of blush on my cheeks.

Oh god.

I'm not lying.

I do feel something for Edward. I have some kind of sick crush on him. That's what this feeling is.

I look up at Esme, terrified she's going to laugh at me. This is so embarrassing. He wants to use me for some evil rebellion and what do I do—I get a crush on him. But that can't be. I'm not that girl. To be honest, Jacob was my first kiss. I had other things to worry about. I still do. If anything my worries have increased. So why do I feel this way about Edward just as he's about to send me off to die? It makes no sense.

Esme doesn't laugh or even smile, but instead steals the glass from my grasp. "I think that's enough alcohol. You have training tomorrow."

"A-alcohol? I'm not allowed to have alcohol! What about my bloodletting?" My ears feel funny, as if everything's muted around me. At the same time all my physical sensations are multiplied.

Esme pulls the chair from out underneath me and gently guides me to a small partition on the side of the room, "You don't have to do bloodlettings anymore, you're a Prospective."

"Oh." I scrunch my nose. I never thought I would miss bloodlettings. "But I didn't throw up?"

In school they told us that even a sip of the forbidden substance would make you throw up. Because of the nasty effect it had on blood the government forbid alcohol, claiming it was just doing us a favor, but I like the topsy-turving feeling.

Esme ignores my question, and puts one gloved hand over my own. "About Edward—"

Hearing his name I tense up, embarrassed I said anything, even more embarrassed it was true. I have to say something before she can comment on how pathetic I am. "And he invented the Morphing Games," I say in horror, unable to conceal my true feelings, not even really wanting to. "You have to understand that's a little . . . " I trail off, refusing to lie about how I actually feel about this fact and settling for truth by omission.

Sensing my discomfort and thinking it was from her touch, she retracts her hand. "I understand how it can be hard to comprehend." Maybe it's the way she looks at me, a little bit like I'm up past my bed time and a little bit like she doesn't want anything to happen to me, but I swear for a moment I see my mother's eyes where hers should be.

Spice and something floral, roses maybe, floats over to me.

She smells like my mother, too.

"Bella, honey," she says quietly, forcing me to lean in closer to hear her.

Up close the smell is even stronger.

It reminds me of curling up next to my Mom in her big bed and letting the rise and fall of her voice lull me to sleep, spooned against her chest. If I close my eyes, it's almost like I'm still there.

"Bella, you have to know," says Esme, and the illusion is broken. Her voice is too perfect, not as scratchy as my mother's, and not low enough either.

I close my eyes, hoping that the lost bit of my mother will come back, but it doesn't.

"I was the one who asked President Aro to tell that story."

My eyes flutter open. "What?"

Esme looks down almost sheepishly, her thick eyelashes fluttering. "You need to know the truth about things, Bella. My son can be a bit . . . modest." If Esme wasn't so graceful I would say that the way she taps her gloved fingertips against the table was nervous. "And I couldn't tell you until it was official, common knowledge." She looks up and meets my eyes, and it's not the way my Mom used to look at me, but it's warm, too. "I care about you, Bella, not just as a Prospective, but as a person. I know we haven't known each other long, but I- let's just say I have an intuition about these things."

It feels like there's a sunrise in my brain, some soft, pale feeling, stained with pastels dawns inside of me as I look at Emse. The smile that comes onto my face next comes slow and hesitant, as flickery as that first ray of sun, but that makes it feel all the more real.

Trust.

"Thanks, I guess."

The feeling dies when I realize that I still haven't solved anything. I'll still be training with Edward tomorrow, and somehow knowing that I like him, having admitted it to myself and to Esme just makes me hate him more. I didn't choose this feeling, and Edward certainly doesn't deserve it. I can still fight it.

Fighting is what I'm good at, after all.


	14. 13

Authors Note:

Sorry, sorry, sorry this chapter took so long. You have no idea how many rewrites it went through. But done is done. Any errors in this are due to my own folly, not my betas who are lovely, HerMightyUberGeekness and Someone Aka Me, as well as my prereader xconfessedx. Thanks guys. I promise this story isn't dead.

[13]

My slumbers are less haunted tonight than they were on the Cloud Gate or even back home, but when I wake up, I still feel uneasy. My bedroom here is so big, and even though Ben loathes me and Charlie is never really present, just being near them calmed me down. A familiar hell is better than an unfamiliar one, I guess.

As I slip into the bathroom, I'm careful not to look at the window. I can't help but think about home even though I know that to lose focus now could be deadly. I imagine Prim and Ben sitting at her no doubt cosy and charming apartment, eating real food. My fantasy quickly evolves by Charlie getting better, too, speaking to Prim and smiling like he used to. In my mind they're all sitting, happily laughing, looking forward to the future as if it's not a monster but a friend.

But when I try and imagine further, problems crop up. Are they watching me on TV? Does Charlie look at me, in the armor, my hair braided like my mom's, and see his wife dying all over again? Does Ben smile as he sees Jasper, because he knows that he won't have to resent his sister anymore, because soon she'll be dead? And Prim. Why would she stay with my brother? Why should she invite a gray-level into her fancy house?

Below them all, Jacob, lurks in my thoughts. I'm surprised that when I think of him I don't feel longing. It's Edward's fault, I decide. Before Edward I could convince myself that what I felt for Jacob was more than platonic, but now with the heady instability Edward causes in me, it's clear that Jacob can never be anything more than a brother. I didn't mean the kiss, not the way Jacob did. The truth makes my stomach cold. I love Jacob but I don't want him physically, and I think if he ever knew that, he'd be crushed. Maybe it's a good thing I'll probably die in the arena. Jacob can continue to think that we could have had something, when I know the truth.

Edward was right, and that just makes me hate him more. Just another reason why I can't give in to this crush. Calling it that—a crush, an infatuation—makes me feel better. It's just that: a nuisance. People overcome silly feelings like that all the time.

As I get out of my morning bath smelling like lilacs, freesia, honey, and all sorts of sweet things that I've never even touched, I look for my clothes. I find them on the sink, but they aren't the nightclothes I came in with.

Where there was once all-purpose gray pajamas is a skin tight suit, black scaled in some kind of material that is hard to the touch but malleable and light when I put it on.

Sculpted face, warrior build, determined expression. I realize with horror that I look more like a Vampire than human.

Here I am fulfilling my childhood dream at the Morphing Games. What did my mom say whenever I asked for my story time? Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it? That had to have been it, because whenever I asked for more story time she would give it to me, even if it dragged on for hours and I ended up exhausted the next day at training school. In retrospect, I wonder if she was purposefully trying to sabotage my education.

I remember one about a bull named Ferdinand. My mother was excellent at funny voices and kooky character antics.

"Every day Ferdinand sat under a big tree and smelled the lilacs and the freesia." Then she would describe every flower she knew, even the ones that weren't poisonous or edible, but just smelled good.

We didn't learn about things like freesia or lilacs at training school, they were neither edible or poisonous, so I always liked that part of her story best.

"But because he liked the flowers so much," my mom would always say, "he didn't like to clank and clash horns with the other bulls. All the other bulls wanted was to be taken away to a far away city and take part in the great bullfight for the humans' amusement. For a while Ferdinand wanted that, too, but then his mother, who was very sensible for a cow, would tell him that the city far away was dangerous." Here Mom would always moo so loud I would have to shush her, afraid it would wake Ben sleeping in the cradle. In some ways, I was always the responsible one. I got that from my father.

"And that if he went to the city far away he would get poked and prodded with flaming-sticks until he was forced to chase after men with red capes." Here I would always go silent, knowing what she was going to say next yet still afraid of it. "'And then', said his mother, 'even if you win they'll make you fight again. Make you fight again, and again, one, two, twenty-three times. Until, finally, you lose.'"

Many times I cried out at this part, begged my mom to skip over it, but she said a story was a story, and you don't skip parts of it just because they're unpleasant.

"'And when you lose,' said the Momma Cow, 'they'll take your head and put it on a wall for all of the other human to see. They'll say, 'See Ferdinand, he was a good bull. He gave his greatest gift to us, his life and vitality.' After Ferdinand heard that, he never wanted to go to the games again. So when the bull catchers came he stood out of the way and let them take the other bulls, and he was happy picking flowers with his mother and munching on grass for the rest of his long, long life."

She stopped telling me that story as I got older, and started the more "hands on" classes in training school. Charlie didn't like her saying those things anyway. He said it wasn't right for a Peacekeeper's wife to be telling the old stories. Especially to a girl old enough to throw a knife.

Charlie was wrong though. It's exactly when a girl learns how to throw a knife that she needs those kinds of stories. Maybe if I had I would have never have gotten good in school, never have become friends with Rosalie, never invited her to that party, and then Rosalie couldn't have informed on us. Maybe if my mother had kept telling me those stories, she'd still be alive.

"Bella, you have to come out sometime." Esme trills from outside of the bathroom.

"Coming," I shout back, spreading lotion over my body. If I'm going to be training and sweating a lot, I want to make sure I mask my scent for Esme.

Esme and I walk the rest of the way to the training center, located in a building connected by underground walkway to the District 2 palace. When we get there, all the other Prospectives, Jasper included, have left to train with their mentors already. I'm grateful I don't have to see Rosalie again, but that gratitude doesn't stem the roiling in my stomach thinking about the fact that I will have to see Edward.

Worse, I'll probably have to obey him, follow his training. He made that explicitly clear in our last conversation. I don't know if I'll be able to do it.

Esme explains to me that the training room is made up of many different rooms, one for every skill that might help you in the games. The first room we enter into is a classic gym, much like the one I went to back home, with weights, a mat, climbing ropes and bulls-eye circle-targets for archery.

Before I can protest, Esme presses two feather-light kisses to my cheeks. "My son should be here shortly."

"I—"

Her eyes harden, but she strokes my arm with absentminded softness as she says, "You will be fine, Isabella. I have seen it."

And then she's gone.

At first I stand in the middle of the empty gym, back straight. I swear to myself that when Edward enters I will look him in the eye; I will not back down. I will show him that I am not afraid of him. I will show him that I know what he did.

I stand in the middle of the mat for what feels like ages, but it couldn't have been more than a few minutes in reality. I know because I've been watching the clock mounted high on the wall.

Arrogant bastard thinks he can make me wait.

Finally, when I'm just about to go into stretches, or better yet, leave, the door opens with a smash.

Edward's red eyes bore easily into mine as he walks towards me with gait liquid and economical from training. It's a dancer's gait, a knife fighter's gait. He stops about a foot away from me, taking an even, open stance.

"Hello, Isabella," he says, and although his words are all pleasantry and artifice, pity, real as blood, stains his lips.

I don't have the skill to cover up the hurt in my eyes, stale from yesterday, but still there, but I can't let him see it. I can't let him know anything that I'm feeling. He'll use it against me and destroy me. Sure, he'll save my life, in fact if I win I'll live forever, but it won't be a life worth having.

So I show my defiance in a way much different than my mother's, through silence.

He looks at the derision on my face like a wise old catfish looking at a badly constructed lure. "I see you took my reprimand about not interrupting to heart."

For a second I almost retort that no, I am not doing this out of politeness, but just as I open my lips to speak I realize that is exactly what he wants. I settle for glaring at the floor.

"So," he begins, half-under his breath, "you hate me now, do you?"

I say nothing, but I don't look him in the eye either.

"You hate something you have absolutely no understanding of." Disdain has been joined by something hotter in his voice—anger. I hear the soft squish of his shoes against the mat. Walking toward me.

"God almighty, you are stubborn." Always sinuously clear, his voice is even more resonant up close.

I want so badly to look up and see his face, or to take a step back, but I know that would be giving in.

"Perhaps you're ignoring me for some other reason." Now when he speaks his voice isn't resonant at all, but a moth-bitten whisper that just begs the listener to lean in

_He knows. _

"Elevated heart rate."

My chest feels like it's about to break from the force of my heart.

"Perspiration."

I can smell him now. Mint with a note of something low and earthy, something hidden.

"And of course—"

I don't see his finger, but I swear the back of his hand brushes against my cheek.

"Flushed skin."

His footfalls stop. I think he's behind me.

"Those aren't signs of hate."

I whip my gaze up to meet his, and almost fall back from surprise.

He is _right _in front of me. Golden eyes burning, not with hate, but not with mirth either.

For one breathless moment, I am sure that he is going to close the distance between us and press his feather-down-soft lips to mine.

His toes are parallel to mine, and although I am shorter then him we are lined up like reflections of each other.

He gives a small chuckle, bereft of amusement.

_He's mocking me. _My blush intensifies in embarrassment.

"No, that's not hate at all." He takes a step backward and his next words are as cold as his skin. "That's fear."

I let out a long wheezing laugh, feeling weightless in relief. _Esme didn't tell him; he doesn't know. _

The tips of his eyebrows kiss each other in confusion. "And now you're laughing?"

I must sound insane to him. Hell, maybe I am. "I'm sorry. It's just that you're so wrong."

"Bravado's a poor shield against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Isabella," he drawls, confusion being replaced with annoyance again.

"Alright, I'm afraid of you." I grant, still giddy with the knowledge that my secret infatuation is safe.

"Do you think I don't know?" He turns slightly, and continues walking so he's now circling me, as if to observe me from every angle. "Is that why you're relieved?"

Now I do shiver.

"Know what?" I bluff, as if I don't know what he's insinuating.

He stops directly behind me; I know because when he whispers next it tickles the shell of my ear. "About your little scheme to save the children. The one you pretended to give up. I would say more about why this is such a foolish, reckless, _selfish _plan . . ."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Edward." I'm a beat too late, and my pause confirms the truth of his statement.

In a single step he blurs so that he is standing in front of me, not uncomfortably close, but at speaking distance. All too late, I realize he's not satisfied with my admission but strangely prickly like a cat dropped into water. "I don't believe I gave your permission to use my name."

"I—"

Before I go on, he continues smoothly, "And don't forget that my mother wants you to win just as much as I do."

"Don't worry, I won't." I swear bitterly. H_ow did she know about my plan? _I never told her.

Unless. . .

She saw the future and told him.

_Or maybe—_

Hope soothes the panic that's made my throat feel smaller and smaller.

_Maybe she didn't tell him. Maybe Edward read her mind without her consent. That had to be it. She wouldn't betray me, except . . . of course she would. Just because she reminds me of Mom doesn't mean anything. _

My thoughts are cut short by the this sight of an object hurtling toward me. I throw up my hand more to block it than to catch it, but find my fingers wrapping around it's leather cover. Before I get a chance to look at it, however, Edward's stolen my attention again.

"Yet, despite how badly we want you to win, you won't win unless you _want_ to," he says with dramatic flair. It's almost as if playing to an audience. I guess, in a way he is; if anywhere in the whole of the Volterran Empire is going to be bugged it's this room.

I fidget with embarrassment at this reminder. For all my desire to appear to make a stand, it's possible I've just been jeopardizing my own life. _Stupid. Stupid. Stupid._ Now is not the time and place to get into a heated discussion of the ethics of the Morphing Games. Not unless I want to die before I even get a chance to put my plan into practice.

"So, I propose an accord," says Edward, striding over to the far right wall of the gym and picking up two of the what must be seventy pound circular bulls-eye targets, and easily hoists them onto his shoulder as if they weigh no more than a knapsack

Despite the logic of his offer, I'm still smarting from the knowledge that he created the Morphing Games, so I ignore him, and focus on the object he _threw_ at me. I'm pretty sure I know it what it is, because from beneath the soft, black leather sheath sticks out a wooden handle with white electrical tape wrapped around it for grip.

Surprisingly, instead of bringing the targets closer he brings them from the far right wall to the even farther left one. "I will train you to survive, and you may keep your pretty delusions about rescuing other Prospectives." Without even a pant of exertion he sets down the first target. "For the moment." Even though he's almost sixty feet away his voice carriers perfectly and it doesn't sound as if he's shouting.

He places the other target perpendicular to the first so that only the side of the circle is showing. _Weird. _

"Well are you going to speak or are you trying miming as a strategy?" Edward asks caustically, having reappeared about six feet away from me.

"What's miming?"

He rolls his eyes. "Decidedly not the point of the conversation." Again he speaks loudly and clearly even though we we're close. He's sending me a message. _Remember, this is a performance, people are listening. _

"What say you, Isabella?"

I want to tell him no, I don't want his training, he can go to the hell he so richly deserves, but I can't. I know that if they catch me saying any more treasonous things it's possible they'll kill me before the games even begin. Mysterious disappearances aren't unheard of among Prospectives.

Do I really want to be like my mother, who died for a song and stories, when I could die to save other people's lives? But I can't just let him think that I like him either. Especially when I actually do.

"Your answer?" He prompts. "I have lived for a very long while, but my patience is not _eternal, _Isabella_._"

Always with my full name. It sounds pretty on his lips, but not completely right either. It's a little condescending but it's more than that. It's as if there's a plastic covering over it. It seems so formal, so distant.

I hate that I wish he would call me Bella. The only thing I hate more is that I want to say yes to his stupid "accord," not because it's the right thing to do, but because I want him to smile at me. I wonder if that would be inhuman, too, or warm and real. Would his eyes crinkle like my fathers, or downturn like Jakes, or maybe remain still like Ben's?

I finger the edge of the sheath, unsnapping it and revealing the glinting steel edge of a blade. With morbid fascination, I draw one finger along the edge of it, not quite drawing blood. Then, in a single practiced motion, I draw back my arm, and hurl the blade at him.

If it were a far away throw, the knife would arc upward, but as Edward's only six feet away the knife flies straight and true as a bullet right to his unbeating heart. Because Vampires are hard as granite, I didn't expect the knife to actually hurt him, but instead bounce off of him. Instead, he grabs it, his hands crunching around the blade as if it's made of tin foil. I have never heard the sound steel breaking before; it's not very pleasant.

"I'll take that as a no then."

I open my mouth to reply, but his glare silences me. It's about the furthest thing from a smile I could imagine, a sneer so hard and bitter it almost hurts to look at, like a biting wind. "You're such a foolish child!" He rants, his carefully maintained control slipping, his fist still clenched around the blade. "You have no conception of the horrors that were the Dark Days; the horrors that your ancestors went through. You're so—"

"I was going to say yes," I say cooly.

He looks taken aback all the same, and briefly I wonder if it's even possible that he wants to see me smile too, that perhaps my words, small as they were in comparison to his, did have an effect.

But then he smiles a lazy, arrogant smile, an "I told you so" smile, and I wish I had another knife to throw. "If you've finally seen reason, then why hurl a deadly weapon my way?"

"You threw one at me."

"Yes." He concedes the point with surprising nonchalance, pulling out another sheathed knife from his interior pocket, and tossing it in my direction. "But I am the teacher, you are the student. I'm allowed to do things to to you that you are not allowed to do to me. Also, incidentally, my knife was _sheathed_. "

I will never understand why at the word "things," the first image my brain conjures is an image of him pushing me to the training ground and nipping at me with kisses. I hate him. I do.

"Let's begin simply, since I assume you are out of practice." Before I can blink Edward is by the targets again, standing straight, looking as if he hadn't moved a foot to get there.

I unsheathe this knife and am quickly met with disappointment. Unlike the other it's steel isn't stainless, and it's so thin that I can pull it back with my finger. It doesn't bend far, but enough so that when it snaps back into place it twangs. That sound is followed immediately much larger whomp . _Woah, did my knife do that? _

It didn't. As I look up, I see that Edward has slammed the crumpled knife into the bulls-eye of the target, handle first, so that the mutilated blade sticks out point first. It's hard to read Edward's expression from far away, but I don't have to. The violence of the sound of the knife handle being slammed into the target makes his feelings clear enough.

"Now, if you would, hit the knife." He betrays none of the anger and is again inhumanly still. In retrospect, maybe throwing a knife at him wasn't the most brilliant plan in the world.

"That must be fifty feet away," I cry. "No one ever throws knives more than fifty feet, not even the teachers, let alone at a target as small as the tip of a blade."

"Do you think your enemies are you going to be content to stay in a fifty feet radius just because of your incompetence?"

For my answer I throw purposefully wide, allowing the handle to release early so the blade ends up twenty feet in front of me, embedded in the blue mat.

If I expect him to be angry, I'm sorely disappointed. He merely looks at the thrown knife like I do when I come across one of the blockages in the sewers back home and have to thread my way through dams of toilet paper and worse. "Pick it up and try again. Without purposeful incompetence this time."

I groan.

It's going to be a long day.


	15. 14

Authors Note:  
>So sorry for the long delay. Life gets in the way. I'll try to update again soon, but no promises! Thanks for anyone still reading this old thang. I've gotten lots of PM's and I appreciate it. Thanks to my betas, Ubergeekness and co, as usual.<p>

[14]

There's a saying in training school. "You have to throw a knife perfectly a thousand times in practice in order to be able to throw it passably in battle once." After a hundred knife throws or so, I'm convinced that Edward is the original source of the saying.

After my purposefully flawed throw, Edward makes me start close to the targets. Once I make the laughably easy shot, I am instructed to back up until I start missing. He doesn't just make me aim for the knife embedded in the target, but also the side and bottom. It would be too easy if there was a single point I was required to hit over and over again, too mindless. As if this weren't enough, he quizzes me about everything from botany, for poisons and healing to constellations, for navigation. Once I master hitting a single point, he starts tossing the targets around, juggling them as if they're apples, not heavy and the size of a truck's hubcaps.

Finally, after my arm is screaming in pain, the speakers in the walls crackle to life and let me know that it's time for lunch. What this really means is that it's time to make allies.

The cafeteria for the Prospectives is no grander than the one from training school. Six tables fill the linoleum tiled room, but they're not the first thing I notice. The most striking sensation is the stench of sweat from the twenty three other bodies, then the lukewarm, dirty odor of the food- gruel. I'm lucky: because I'm from a district that often wins I get good food for dinners, but for day-time training we're all treated equally. Honestly, I'm grateful for the plainness of lunchtime; I've gotten a little too accustomed to luxury living in the District 2 palace already.

I grab one of the trays from the stack and head over to the food station. Unlike the cafeteria from training schoo, there are no hair-netted Grey Levels dishing out protein rich slop. It's self-serve. If the bowls have different flavors I wouldn't know it; each one seems to be filled with identical gray porridge punctured by square chunks of something dark and slimy looking; they're protein balls probably. I pick one, ladle the slop directly onto my tray, and grab a spoon. Violence between Prospectives is strictly forbidden, and to emphasis this there aren't any knifes or forks.

Once done serving myself, I survey the social battle field. I'm surprised by what I see.

In training-school we were taught that the Morphing Games were designed so that six teams of four (preferably a pairing up of districts) would exist at the beginning stages of the games. It isn't a rule—there are no rules once one enters the arena—but: assuming rational competitors, that's how game theory said it should break down. That is why there are six tables, one for each team.

Reality, however, doesn't go by the book. Only four of the tables are filled and with varying degrees of density. The center table is packed to the brim with Prospectives, but the further away from the center table I look the less populated the other five tables become.

From the center table comes a voice. "Bella, darling," calls Jasper. He smiles brightly, as if he wasn't shoveling gray mush into his mouth. He waves. "Over here!"

I don't wave back.

Jasper sits at the point closest to the me, from the first of the tables, the one in the center of the room. Around him sit his allies, no- disciples. There are at least eight of them crammed onto the bench, thighs touching thighs. Some of them are still laughing, whether at me or at something Jasper just said, I don't know.

It doesn't surprise me that Jasper is surrounded by followers; he and Rosalie were leaders in school. That was how Rosalie became a contender; she made people care for her. When she finally made it to the games, all the careers rallied around her, grateful to bask in her beauty. She didn't even have to ask them to swim to the dangerous caves to fish. They wanted to protect her.

She did kill though; the audience wouldn't have been happy with a Victor who didn't do something to deserve her victory.

In the beginning of the games, the starting area was located on a small, floating island that quickly sank. Most of the tributes jumped off of it-but not Rosalie. She killed three people in the first ten minutes of the Morphing Games, one of which was the expected winner, a District 1 Prospective named Royce King. Even after she separated his head from his body she still didn't evacuate the island. As the salty waves began to submerge the island, dragging down his body into the deep sting-ray infested waters, she stood and watched until she heard the boom of the canon signaling his death.

In the end though, it was her beauty that won her the games. By the sixteenth day, Rosalie and her crew had been successful—too successful. They had eliminated every other competitor. Only two of them were left: Rosalie and her most loyal lieutenant, a huge boy from District 7.

After Royce, Emmett McCarthy was the expected Victor. His interview tapes showed that he could break a tree-trunk in half with his bare hands, and as the games went on it became clear that he had no problem killing with brutal efficiency.

Ratings spiked when it came down to Rosalie and him. The audience, vampire and human alike, waited for him to take her by surprise from behind and cleanly break her neck.

As time passed the ratings soared higher and higher in anticipation. Every interaction between the two was given new meaning. Was he preparing a fire for her or readying some trap to burn her alive? Were the fish Rosalie gathered and cooked for him poisonous?

On the fifth day, the ratings began to decline. The audience had grown bored waiting.

They wanted blood.

On the sixth day, the leeches came.

Small, black, and conditioned to survive out of water, they wormed their way by thousands into the campsite, a cave on an island at the far end of the arena. Because the leeches came from the beach, there was no way out; they sucked and slithered over every surface. A few even stuck their teeth edged suckers onto the lenses of the cameras.

For the first time ever, it seemed certain that there was going to be no winner to the Morphing Games. Both Rosalie Hale and Emmett Mcarthy were destined to die. Killing each other quickly was their only recourse; the moment the canons sounded the helicopters would come and rescue the winner and the leeches would be called off.

In the recaps, they showed the next few moments over and over again. Rosalie staring at Emmett, lips pursed but eyes so so wide and Emmett's face unmoving as ever, even as the leeches started to inch up onto his boots.

The two most proficient killers of the games just stood and looked each other as death crowded around them, slimy and infinite.

Then Emmett did something strange.

He smiled.

It was the first smile he had ever given on camera. People always seemed to think the District 7 Prospective was more bulldozer than human being, but he wasn't. As he wrapped a very startled Rosalie up in his thick arms and planted a kiss on the top of her head, he was very much a man.

I remember that even with the screen being unbearably pixelated from leech slime, I could see that she didn't look brutal or beautiful, only surprised.

"I won't kill you," he said.

Before she could do more he gave that smile again and jogged calmly—as if going for a cool-down lap on the track—into the field of leeches.

And that is how Rosalie Hale won the 99th Morphing Games.

Judging from the crowd almost gleefully assembled around Jasper Hale's table, he's going to win the same way. Except there's one notable difference. Instead of assembling the strongest competitors as his allies, he's gathered the children and the weak.

At his right is the girl I ran into at the parade, short and dark-haired, hands tugging at his sleeve impatient to have his golden gaze back on her. At his left is the small boy with black hair and almond eyes, the other tribute from District 3. It isn't just the young ones either; at the other end are the two tributes from District 12 looking thin and trembly. My only saving grace is that the youngest looking girl with the curly red hair is not among his fan-club. I don't have to worry about fighting against her. At least not yet.

These are the people I would have picked for my allies, the ones I would have wanted to protect. Jasper can't just steal my past, he has to steal my future, too. So much for Bella, Knight in Shining Armor. The only way I'm going to protect the weak is by allying myself with Hale, and that's never going to happen. I'm already being trained by the man who invented the Morphing Games. I won't associate with anymore people who have done me harm. Maybe I'll try and get them alone later, but at the moment they all look enthralled by Hale. They're children and I can see in their eyes that they trust him.

It makes me sick, but there's nothing I can do about it. I know how social dynamics work. Any protest I make will only end up alienating them further.

So I choose to ignore Jasper's summons, eliciting a stream of gasps and shouts of "how rude." I don't care; I know that to associate with a Hale is equivalent to presenting your naked back and begging him to put a dagger in it.

Out of the other five tables, three are occupied. The first one, located right next to Jasper's, is the one I should logically sit at—the Career table. It's filled with all the other Prospectives from districts who are like me, the ones who have training. It's headed by the two District 1 prospectives. They look like they've been styled by Bree and Cynthia, wearing neon training clothes and matching silver headbands, and they have one of few names that I remember: Aston Martin and Volvina Beemmdoubleyu. Behind them is the black boy from District 4 with his long dreadlocks and assorted other capable, but imposing looking characters.

Edward gave me no specific advice. Maybe because he knew I wasn't particularly fond of him and would probably ignore anything he said. So I'm not sure if befriending the Careers is what he'd encourage. Either way, I decide against it. Just because I can't be the "friend" to the weak like Jasper, doesn't mean I have to be the big bad wolf.

I turn from their table and face the other two. Both of them are emptier than the Career table and sparser still than Jasper's. One of them holds the tributes from "the middle Districts," as we call them. The ones not obscenely poor like 12, but not wealthy enough to boast careers. They look like what Prospectives are supposed to be: silent and more than a little afraid, speaking in hushed tones about what the hell they are going to do to survive.

I dismiss their table immediately.

That leaves the farthest table. The one located right by the door. Unlike the other tables, you can tell that even though they're sitting together, they're not friends-not even allies.

This is the table I pick.

They don't even notice when I plop my tray down and begin shoveling food into my mouth. Eventually, I turn to the boy nearest to me and give a stout "hello."

He looks up at me from his tray with hollow blue eyes, opens his mouth as if to respond but then closes it again. Even though he's made it clear that he's done talking with me, I don't stop staring.

He's one of the tributes from District 10, the one with the bald head. He seemed so impassioned at the reaping, so eager. So why is he so listless now, so resigned? He moves in almost slow motion, the journey his fork takes from plate to mouth is twice as long as it should be. The girl sitting next to him is also bald.

"Hey." I try again.

She turns to look at me, and this time she respons. Her voice is higher and more feminine than I expected given her androgynous haircut. "Why are you here?"

"Same reason as you," I say, hoping they'll correct me and explain why they really volunteered. If they don't do that, then at least saying I'm like them might create camaraderie. I remembered that tatic from a bright yellow handout we got in fifth year, called How to Make Alliances. It had stick figure illustrations and everything.

Her expression doesn't change, but her voice rises a little in exasperation as she raises a hand and points to the table in the center-Jasper's table. "Why aren't you there?"

I stir swirly patterns into the half-eaten gray muck of my tray absentmindedly. "Why aren't you there?"

The girl shakes her head, and goes back to shoveling gray muck into her mouth. So much for the pamphlet. Let's try this the old fashioned way.

"I'm Bella."

The boy looks up at me, startled that I've continued to speak to them. He kind of reminds me of Charlie a little. Finally, after staring at me a long time, he says, "I'm Mike and this is Jessica."

I would say nice to meet you, but the truth is that as interesting as it is to meet other districts with all of their strange customs, it isn't nice to meet them. The only reason I am meeting them is because I'm trying to construct a band of killers.

"And you're from District 10?" I ask shakily. I've always been bad at small talk. Maybe that's why I chose this table, because they don't seem like they're good at it either.

Jessica nods her head and as is it lowers I can see she has what looks like a bar code tattooed on the top of it. I give a subtle glance to Mike's head. He has one, too.

Maybe their bald heads aren't fashion statements. Maybe they're forced to shave their heads the same way all below Gold Level are forced to wear jumpsuits of the color of their class. I can't just ask them straight out why they shaved their heads, and even if I could, I'm not sure I'd want to know.

But my curiosity needs some kind of information in order to be sated. "District 10. That's livestock, right?"

Neither responds. I search for other information I know about District 10. It's the biggest of all the districts, encompassing most of the Rockies and the bits of California and Mexico that weren't swallowed up by the oceans.

They look at me as if I've suddenly started talking backwards.

I give it one more try. "Like cows, pigs and bulls." I remember my mom's story about Ferdinand the Bull. From all the bath soaps my skin does kind of smell like flowers, just like the kind Ferdinand used to roll around in

This shakes Jessica out of her stupor. "What's a cow?" she asks.

My brow furrows. "It's an animal; black, white and spotted."

Mike's expression is as empty as his pale head.

I elaborate. "We eat it . . . well if you're rich you can."

I guess with my fantastical tales of farm animals I've lost their interest. They return to naval gazing at their slop.

I'm just about to try again when I hear a small coughing from the other end of the table. I was so focused on the two District 10 Prospectives' oddness that I didn't notice the figure hunched over her plate. I can't see her face from underneath her coppery curls, but I recognize her from her hair alone.

It is the girl from my nightmares, the girl reaped from District 9.

"Hey—" I breach the silence warily. "—are you alright?"

She's undeniably the prettiest child I've ever seen, even though she's short, and has a small pot-belly and a face round as the moon. Though her skin is as pale as a vampire's, her eyes are a warm, human chestnut. They stare into mine with a childish disregard for social cues. She can't be more than twelve.

She opens her little lips but doesn't speak, and merely gives another long, percussive cough. I scoot across the bench and closer to her, reaching out a hand. It's probably not a good idea; it's possible she's contagious but seeing her small body shake with coughs-somehow makes it hard to think rationally. She's different from Emily or even Ben; she's here alone. She doesn't have anybody who cares about her at least she shouldn't. She's the the easiest target.

"Y-you're from District 2," she stammers timorously. I look over to Mike and Jessica, but they're bent over their gray meals, eating without any kind of table manners. From this angle they kind of look like farm animals. To them the girl is invisible.

"Yes," I say, holding a hand up close to her huddled body, but not touching her.

"You're with the blond boy. He's your partner." She doesn't scoot away, even as I move my hand closer to her.

"Jasper Hale is not my partner, I promise you. I mean technically he is, but I—" I'm about to say that I want to kill him, that I will kill him, but then I remember she's twelve and that will only scare her more. Even though there are much worse realities waiting for her in the arena.

"He wanted me to come join his table," she says, and to my surprise, actually scoots closer to me.

"Why didn't you?" I ask. I imagine for a little girl charismatic Hale would give the perfect illusion of being a big brother. Until he slit her throat, of course.

She shakes her head. "His eyes don't smile when he does." To demonstrate she gives a half-smile, and allows her eyes to remain narrowed. "I think maybe I shouldn't trust him."

"Well, you're right," I say firmly. I don't trust Jasper, and if I can encourage her distrust of him, all the better.

Her eyes brighten. "Really?"

"Really." I feel pleased with myself. I bet no one's said anything encouraging to her since she got her. Whoever was her mentor was probably pissed off when they were assigned a weak one- bloodbath fodder.

Bashfully she says, "My mom always said I was good at reading people. I don't really know what that means, though."

When she says the word Mom I can't help but imagine that somewhere, her mother will have to watch on TV as her daughter dies. For the first time in my life, I am glad my mother is dead. That way she won't have to see me die. She saw me covered in bruises every day and she had thought that was bad enough to rebel; what would she have done if she saw me die on TV? I don't want to know.

"Hey." The girl pokes me in the arm, round chin to her chest, looking up at me.

"Yeah, what?" I briefly consider that maybe this is her strategy, look so cute that she finds someone to protect her.

She begins to say something but coughs instead. Finally, after a few good hacks she asks, "What's your name?"

"I told them my name, weren't you listening?" I can't help but smile a little.

She shakes her head, her curls bouncing as she does. "I was. Just tell me again."

"I'm Bella."

Her lips move around the syllables slowly and with great deliberation. "Bella?"

I touch her shoulder lightly, because I just can't help myself. She looks so lost, so alone. "That's my name, don't wear it out."

She bows her head, almost in supplication. If she is acting, she is playing the part of the frightened little girl perfectly. "I'm Renesmee."

"Renesmee." I repeat so that I remember it. If she dies in the arena, which she probably will, I want to remember her name, not just recall her as the Prospective from District 9. This is a person. We are people, no matter how we die.

For the first time, she smiles. Dimples blossom and, her whole face transforms as her lips part, revealing a collection of small baby-teeth, a few of which are missing.

"You can get something for that cough; no Prospective should go into the arena in anything other than perfect physical condition. It's the Capitol's job to make sure you have the best chance you can."

Someone gives a laugh as empty as a scrap of shed skin. Next to me, between Jessica and me, I here a clank and then another as two someones, sit down beside me. "The Capitol doesn't give a shit."

"Come on Lauren," whines a dark baritone ",you're going to get us into trouble."

"It doesn't matter, we're getting out of here anyway," the girl whispers back, but it's more of a rasp then actual speech.

"Sorry, what?" I ask turning to face the new table sitters.

It's the boy and girl from District 8. They look less afraid now than they did when their names were called. Well, the girl does at least. Her black braids are pulled back into a bun, her dark skin wet with the reflective sheen of sweat. She's been training. Judging by the way she clutches her side and her sneakers, probably running.

"I said-" she repeats her voice naked of niceties, "-that the Capitol doesn't give a shit about little bunny foo foo over here." She jerks her thumb in Renesmee's direction.

I don't like the Capitol any more than they do, I'm sure. But I'm not an idiot. Speaking like that Lauren must have a death wish. She doesn't even look powerful, just wiry and hungry. Underneath the table I can see her hand grips that of the other boy from her district—hard.

"You shouldn't say things like that," says Jessica, her voice jarringly loud compared to the hushed plotting of the other two Prospectives.

Lauren glares at her, and then, to make a point, raises her voice even louder. "Why? We're all going to di—"

"Lauren!" The boy tries to sound commanding, but he's got the kind of face that's all nose and eyes, and his jaw's too pointy to seem really masculine. It doesn't help that his ears stick right out on either side like awkward, fleshy butterfly wings.

Renesmee frowns and rolls her eyes at the group of them, as if they are the silly young ones. "We can find a way not to." She seems so confident, I might almost believe her.

Lauren smirks. "Do you even know what dying means, sweetie?" Her lips harshen further, distorting into a sneer.

"Stop it," I say.

Lauren whirls on me. "And who do you think you are? Trying to round up your own team because you don't want to play second fiddle to Hale?"

The boy throws his hands up in the air in frustration. "Lauren, I thought we were going to get allies."

"I said I would talk to people. I don't need allies not with my plan."

"I don't know what you're planning on doing, but it's not just your own lives you're risking," I say obliquely. They could hurt her family, too.

Maybe she's getting tired of being bitchy, or maybe she catches the hint, because she turns to Tyler while spooning a bit of slop into her mouth and says, "I'm sorry, baby."

Then to my surprise and disgust she doesn't bring the full spoon to her mouth but to his, feeding him like he's a small child. He stiffens but accepts the spoon without complaint. Before I realize it, they're kissing, hands running over each other's bodies as if we aren't even here. When they part they both look slightly glazed.

"Eww," says Renesmee softly.

I agree. Mostly because it's just so odd to see people kissing. Not just anybody, but someone they'd possibly have to kill when push came to shove. I shouldn't have been so surprised though, in addition to holding hands, they both are wearing the same token; two rings, not on their ring fingers, but on the index. Not married, but very serious.

After that Lauren and Tyler turn to their slop and begin eating, too. Between bites, Lauren turns to me. "So, you're from 2, with the Hale the Hero?"

"Yes." I reply curtly, because I have a feeling not engaging her would just make the situation worse.

"So then you've had training before?" asks Tyler, his question sounding less like an accusation than Lauren's had.

"I was a Gray Level, so, no, I didn't." I lie. There's no reason for them to know the reality of my strengths and weaknesses. Being an unknown was much better than being feared or even respected in the Morphing Games. The less people knew about you, the less likely it is they can find you or understand your action pattern.

"Gray level?" asks Renesmee. She's gotten even closer now, half nuzzled into my sleeve.

If she is contagious, having her this close could be a disaster. I find I don't really care. It's funny sometimes, how you just meet someone and you feel for them even though don't really know them. It was like that with Renesmee. To a certain extent it was like that with Edward, although the feelings Edward elicited were very different. I don't fight the feeling of protectiveness that Renesmee brings out in me. Maybe it's just because I do want to be good, feel pride in myself and not guilt.

"It's the lowest level. All the menial jobs are filled by gray levels, all the merchant jobs by green levels, and all of the highest positions, like Blood Bank workers, are filled by gold levels. Only the kids of Gold Levels go to training school." I don't tell them that I was once a Gold Level.

"Huh," says Tyler softly. He's a tall boy, probably the tallest one here, but somehow that only makes him look weaker.

"What Tyler means-" clarified Lauren with a sneer "-is that is really weird."

I shrug. "What do they do in your district then?"

"We don't have levels." Lauren looks around at the clique-segregated cafeteria. "Everyone is equal."

My brow furrows. "How do you decide who gets the best jobs?"

"There are no 'best jobs,' everybody works in the factory together," she says. At this, Tyler reaches a hand up to the side of her face and strokes it.

"But what about the Blood Bank workers?" I ask.

I don't mention the Peace-Keepers because I know they are imported from 2, my district. Most of the Gold Levels who don't end up entering The Morphing Games, which was by and large the majority of the kids, were shipped off to other districts. The Capitol said it helped if the Peacekeeping force wasn't related to the district they came from, that way they would be above the corruption and problems of the districts. They didn't have to know the people they administered justice to.

Lauren shoves her spoon into the mush, which had cooled and coagulated enough so that her spoon sticks right out of it like a metal flag. "Don't know where the Blood assistants come from, but it sure as hell ain't from my district."

Mike, who had finished all of his slop, for the first time looks up at Lauren. "You're dumb, you know that?"

She snorts and leans into Tyler, who drops his own spoon and puts his arms around her. "I'm braver than you suckers."

Mike shrugs. "Can I have your food if you're not going to eat it?" He reaches out for the plate.

"Sure." Lauren hunches over to mimic the way he had been crouched over his plate. "Eat your slop little piggy." The tray scrapes against the the table as she slides it in his direction.

Before it can get to him, Jessica grabs it. "Don't say that."

Mike reaches for the plate, eyes downcast, apparently properly chastised by Lauren's taunts, but Lauren targets him for Jessica's defiance. "Sorry, I should have said little sheep, all ready to go off to the slaughter."

"Babe," Tyler said, his voice thrown up into a falsetto from panic. "Come on, don't be stupid."

By now the other tables have gone quiet, and even Jasper is still, standing up slightly from his position at the apex of the circle, all of his followers sitting, allowing him to see.

"It's not about stupid," Lauren's eyes widen, and what had seemed dark now gleamed, reflecting the florescent lights. "It's about what's right. I don't want to be here. And so what if they whip me for it? At least I have courage."

Now everything is silent.

"They're not going to whip you." The moment I speak I am by the sound of my own voice, how tepid it sounds compared to Lauren's almost rabid proclamations, but my next words hold their own. "They're going to kill you."

Lauren scoffs. "Yeah right. I'm a Prospective now. What are they going to do? They're already sending me into hell anyway."

Tyler grabs at Lauren's hand ineffectually, trying to tug her back down to the seat. "Come on, babe, just listen to the girl." The way he says babe, the way he tugs at her hand looks strained. Like he's a kid dressed up in his Dad's too-big clothes.

"No!" shouts Lauren.

Tyler raises up his hands and scoots away from her.

Lauren leans over the tray under Jessica's nose and takes it, shoving under Mike's nose. "Come on little Volterran obedient piggy, eat up."

"Don't," says Jessica sharply.

Lauren makes squealing noises like a pig.

Before I realize it, Jessica leans over, takes the tray of slop, and tips it so all the gray mush slides right into Lauren's face. It dribbles down in between her braids and clumps of it get stuck on her eyelids so that they are too heavy to blink.

I look to the doors, certain that a vampire is going to come in and break up the fight, but no one does.

For a second Lauren stands there, coated in the porridge before she wipes it off of her eyes. Only when she blinks at Jessica does Jessica respond.

"Don't you call him that," she says low, slightly breathless.

Then she turns to me. "You want to know what kind of livestock we raise in District 10."

I don't respond.

I think I can see tears in her eyes. Not big ones, but strange colors have come across her face, red has invaded her irises and she clenches her now slopless tray-weapon tightly.

"You want to know?" she repeats lower.

Against my sleeve I can feel Renesmee shake her head. Part of me agrees with her. Jessica has transformed from the girl so sedate she could have been dead to a pale-bald monster quicker than I thought possible only something terrible could inspire that kind of anger.

Lauren speaks instead of me, and she doesn't sound angry, but afraid. "F-fine. Tell us." She was a girl like Jacob's sister Leah, all talk and no action. I just hoped that her foolish words wouldn't get her killed before she even had a chance to enter the arena.

Jessica sets down the tray and whirls to face Lauren. "In District 10 there are fifteen pens. Each pen is the size of this whole training center, and inside each pen there are a hundred smaller pens. This building holds seven thousand animals. When new animals are born they are separated from their mothers, put in a new pen, and nursed by the oldest females in the pens. On Sundays, they are let out of the pen for an hour. No more. After that hour, the herd is taken to the medicine bay to be shaved." She takes a deep unsteady breath. "Then the w-weakest are taken away and sent to the slaughter."

"I don't get it." Lauren sits back down and reaching for Tyler. He doesn't reach back.

Lauren may not, but I do. I look at Jessica in horror as she sits back down. I don't voice my understanding aloud because to do so would put me in just as much trouble as Lauren or even Jessica.

Still, I know I'm right, because of the way Mike's previously impassive face changes, with every seemingly text-book dry fact that Jessica recites. His lips contort a little. Occasionally, he touches his face, as if surprised by the emotion there or wishing to contain it

Yet, even though I've figured it out, I don't answer when sometime later, after the clanking of knives and forks mixed with small talk has resumed, Renesmee scrambles onto her knees and whispers in my ear, "I don't understand."

It all makes sense now. Why everyone in District 10 is so eager to volunteer. Why Jessica and Mike speak so monosyllabically. Why their heads are shaved.

In District 10 the livestock are humans. 


End file.
